Planeswalk: Mage
by Askari Knight
Summary: The Planeswalk Event occurred 8 years ago when Earth and Akris became aligned. Magic and technology came into being to allow people to travel from one world to the other, but 6 years ago the bridge shattered and many were stranded. Liam is one such, and he wants to go home. At any cost.
1. Chapter 1

A knock at the door found him sitting at his cedar writing desk, frowning in concentration. Silently, a rose spun slowly about its long axis above his outstretched hand. It trembled briefly at the sound, threatening to fall as his focus split to include the door, but he had no time for the irritation that flashed up during his practice session.

"Come in," Liam called, cursing absently as his focus disintegrated further. The rose was visibly shaking, and sweat began beading on his brow.

The door swung open and hit the wall with a _bang_ and his concentration shattered completely, the rose falling into the waiting hand as he turned to face his guest.

He leaned heavily on a staff, each step accompanied by a fleeting flash of pain across his features. A long time ago he'd received an injury that had healed wrong, but he refused any suggestion to get it treated.

"Good day, Master," Liam bowed his head respectfully. "I was just practicing my focus."

"So I see." Jacob ambled over with painstaking slowness and plucked the rose from his apprentice's hand. "So who laid this outside your window?"

"I believe it was Ardalia this time." Liam pursed his lips and looked at the rose with speculation tinting his features. "Perhaps I should stop encouraging them. They hold no interest for me."

"A man your age should have a healthy appetite for women," Jacob mused, dropping the rose on my desk and moving instead to the window. His dark robes whispered against the floor, the same ones he always seemed to wear yet never soil. "It's a lovely day, today, and you've studied enough. Don't waste your youth as I did. Go out, and enjoy it. Perhaps you can court Ardalia."

"The end result of courting Ardalia I could get from a prostitute," the apprentice replied evenly, closing his workbook. Perhaps a bit too firmly for his cat's delicate sensibilities. Flare glared at him from the window where the remainder of the full, red roses sat. "And with far less emotional baggage. Lord and Lady know there's no shortage in town." Just as Master Jacob opened his mouth to admonish him Liam quickly cut in. "However, you are correct in that it is a nice day out. I believe I will follow your suggestion and enjoy the sunshine."

The student stood and collected several items that included his spell component pouch, a shoulder-slung bag for his workbook in case he chose to continue studying, and his herb-harvesting tools. _If I'm going out, I may as well be prepared in case I find any Lady's Tear or one of the more poisonous herbs Kerist-Alshoon always had a high demand for._

"Liam, since you're going into town anyway…" Master Jacob knew damned well that he hadn't been intending to enter the port-city, but he was determined to dragoon his apprentice into doing what he wanted. "I need you to pick up a few things for me. Some of my stocks are running a little low. I can harvest some of what I need from the garden, but there are reagents that simply won't grow in the ground."

"What do you need, Master?"

"I've taken the liberty of preparing a list," he quirked his lips with amusement as he held out a folded piece of parchment. "You've enough spending money to purchase these items, I trust?"

Liam sighed inwardly and unfolded the parchment to skim through the list. He gave his Master the hairy eyeball when he'd mentally tallied up what he could realistically expect to get them for, but said nothing beyond grabbing his coin purse, which clinked noisily as he settled it into his shirt's inner pocket.

"If I don't have enough, I'll get you what I can, and you can limp into town and get what's left over yourself."

"Oh, by all means." Jacob smiled patiently, the expression nearly making his young face handsome. Were it not for his corpse-like pallor, that is. Though he looked to be in the region of sixteen, he hadn't aged a day in the six years Liam had been apprenticed to him, leading him to believe that Jacob could be much older than he.

Liam gathered a few more items which could be bartered for a bit of a discount – jars of prepared herbs, oils and creams – and grabbed Flare, preferring not to leave him behind whenever he went into town. He was a big tomcat, nearly thirty pounds of muscle that had once been fat.

The apprentice glanced around quickly, as though to determine if there was anything else. He then waved at his Master and started on left his abode on his way toward Kerist – the above-water part of the city.

Liam's rickety little three-room hut was situated a couple dozen meters away from Jacob's much larger two-story house, opposite the main road into the city and sunk into the ground about half its height. The depth had led Jacob to make several cracks about Liam being part dwarf.

The hut had been built by hand with the aid of some Liam's clients as a summer project last year in order to claim his own living space. It was a memory of accomplishment that made Liam swell with pride each time the thought crossed his mind.

In no small part had the decision for his own home been that he needed somewhere separate from his Master's in order to practice the herbalist's craft.

Jacob's property lay about a quarter kilometer north of the main thoroughfare and was ensconced in a wide clearing surrounded on all sides and hidden from the road by tall trees. A narrow dirt track not unlike a game trail led from the house to the road, and it was this Liam followed until he reached the highway and turned east, toward Kerist.

Small homes living outside the city were not exactly rare, but there weren't very many outside of the farmsteads that provided the city with its produce needs. Most such hermit-like homeowners were powerful wielders of magic and more than capable of repelling raiders and bandits seeking what was often perceived as easy pickings.

Jacob had alternate methods of repelling raiders, as opposed to simple brute force methods. The exterior of his home was decorated with a wide variety of illusory heads stuck on illusory poles, a concept he picked up from some stories Liam had shared regarding Vlad the Impaler.

Early on in his apprenticeship there'd been many raids a week, despite their relative nearness to the city, and each time Jacob had used the brute-force methods so common. Liam had asked why he didn't use psychology to scare them off, and when he showed interest was told a much abbreviated tale of Vlad Dracul.

The next day the illusory spikes appeared, and the next band of raiders went running for the hills as soon as they penetrated into the grove. Jacob rotated their exact features daily, resulting in what to the uninitiated would look like a mighty warrior or wizard killing hordes of bandits each day.

The surrounding dense forest of deciduous trees thinned with considerable speed as Liam neared the outer walls of Kerist, vanishing entirely into prairie about a mile away from the city. That area was rigorously pruned to keep it clear of concealing trees, though in truth the forest's area was very small, quite nearly a mere copse that overlapped the highway, for farther to the north and south the tree line curved back to the west.

As he approached the city Liam made a detached mental note about the low traffic, correlated it with what he'd witnessed over the past several years, and figured that land-based trade was in one of its dry seasons, when merchants await ships laden with goods from the northern climes of Kerek or from the eastern continent, whose name Liam had yet to learn.

"Oh, hello there Liam." One of the guards – a big man about six and a half feet tall – called the greeting, which the apprentice returned with a friendly smile. The guard's brown surcoat hid the mail all Kerist-Alshoon's guards were given save for at his wrists, and the golden shell that was the city's emblem gleamed from his left breast as though freshly polished.

Liam paused, nodding toward him amiably before letting my gaze drift toward the gate he watched over: Morris Gate. "Good day, Thomas. I gather from the traffic that we're going into the slow season, are we?"

"It's been this way for a few days now," Thomas shook his head. "I almost wish it were busier."

"I can well imagine," Liam grinned. "But at least you get to relax for the same wage, aye?"

"'Tis true, 'tis true. Go on in, my friend. But try to avoid the piers, aye? The cecaelia are in their season."

Liam paled and thanked him for the information, passing under the gate and heading on to his first destination in the Merchant's Quarter, which was thankfully quite distant from the pier.

"Liam!" A woman's voice made him pause his brisk walk, long enough for the young female to catch up and put her arm through his. "I'm glad you came into town. What are your plans today?"

"I'm running some errands for Master Jacob," Liam replied, giving her an appraising glance. _It's convenient that she managed to snag onto me just as I passed through the gate._ She stood a bit over five feet in height, with slightly angular eyes and vaguely pointed ears, all of which were courtesy of her elven mother. Her human father's gift was her solid physique.

Elf females tended towards lean and slender almost to a fault, and Liam considered Ardalia still far too slender to be healthy. It could have been the dress, though: pin-stripes didn't flatter anybody.

Still, she was pretty enough, and seemed to find him interesting…

_Maybe I should take Jacob up on his advice. Having someone to slam in bed – even if she is female – would break up the tedium. Maybe I should ask Jacob about sex magic, and whether it's even been contemplated. I could use a spell guaranteed to stop an infection before it gets started, just in case. Pregnancy, too._

Ardalia kept up a steady stream of inane chatter as they strolled along to Liam's first destination: a reagent vendor by the name of Caradas. His store – shop, whatever – was a tidy affair, wares clearly marked and priced rather reasonably. He offered Liam a discount whenever he brought Caradas herbal ingredients for his reagents and…extracurricular activities.

The majority of Liam's herbalist and healing instruction at the hands of a lay-priest of Echeriel, the hermaphroditic god/dess of nature. Such instruction had of necessity included those naturally growing substances that possessed narcotic or hallucinogenic properties, which one might imbibe in the interests of experiencing said properties.

Caradas being such a one.

"Good day, Old Man," Liam greeted the shopkeeper as he stepped inside. His eyes adjusted slowly to the lesser illumination within, so it took a few moments to determine Caradas' shop was not entirely bereft of customers. The sole customer – a young, blond man wearing the voluminous robes common to arcanists – blinked owlishly before hurriedly thanking the old vendor and bustling off. Liam stepped aside to let the young man pass before moving up to speak with Caradas, digging into his satchel for the "brief" list Jacob had provided.

Strictly speaking Liam could probably get everything on the list at Caradas' – and he would – but since he'd forced his apprentice to come into town anyway, Liam could run some errands that would have proved problematic had he procrastinated as usual.

"New customer?" The apprentice jerked his head at the door to indicate the departed blond man.

"Aye," Caradas nodded, peering at Liam over his spectacles. A gnome, he sat behind the counter, atop a slightly concave disc covered in a variety of pelts that smelled of various spices. One whose eyes are keen would note the lack of a support for his seat. They'd also notice how unnaturally still his legs were, despite how he shifted. "In a manner o' speakin'. 'E's postin' notices all about. Somethin' about delvin' inta a keep summat. What kin Ah do fer ye?"

"Master Jacob's sent me into town for some things he requires for his experiments." Liam placed the list on the counter before the old man. "This is what he wants. I'm interested in arranging a trade between any of the desired items and some substances you indicated as low of stock when last I was in." Rummaging in his satchel for a moment, Liam pulled out six clay jars and four glass vials, all of which were carefully wrapped in cloth to protect them from the bumps and rattling of travel. Each was clearly labeled with its name in three different languages – Palax, Elven and Draconic – though he'd taken care not to include any of their potential uses. If one didn't know, one had no business purchasing them.

Caradas gave the young man a quick glance before scanning through Jacob's list. Items began to rise away from their places on display shelves and flew through the air to settle in a cluster beside Liam's wares, a sight which caused Ardalia to cling tighter to his arm. It was obvious she'd never been inside the shop of a wizard who regularly employed the use of magic in his day-to-day activities. _I guess that since there aren't all that many mages in Kerist-Alshoon, there wouldn't really be all that many people out and about._

The old man took up a stick of charcoal and made little dashes next to the various objects on Jacob's list. "I'll trade ye bottle fer bottle," he said, indicating the two neat clusters. Liam did a quick count of both and found they were equal. A careful cross-checking with the list told him the ticks Caradas had made beside some of the items were what he was trading, leaving another four reagents that would have to be purchase from Liam's wallet

Better than a discount, in this case.

"The trade is equitable." Almost immediately after the words left his mouth, Liam's collection of vials leapt up and made their way to the back of the shop, where Caradas made his home. "As for the remaining items, do you have them in stock?"

"Aye, but they're rare." That was another way of saying they were expensive and out of Liam's price range.

"How much?" Liam asked, his stomach sinking.

"This'un," Caradas tapped the parchment. "tha couatl tears, they're kept in an extradimensional box."

Liam went cold and pale as he stared at the old gnome in dismay. Then down at the shopping list. Every item that Caradas kept on his shelves was under fifty shikas – the gold coins shaped like shells used as currency in this region – and he kept substances up to around five hundred shikas locked up tight in the back with who-knows-what kinds of arcane protections maintaining it. Anything above that he sealed in an extradimensional storage box.

"Liam?" Ardalia tugged on his arm, and Liam turned to see an image of Jacob standing several inches off the ground and a few feet away.

"Liam, don't concern yourself with continuing your apprenticeship until you bring me those reagents. Some are expensive, I know, but you'll persevere. Good luck."

Silence reigned as Liam glared at the spot where Jacob's image had vanished. Many emotions churned within him, not the least of which was an acute sense of betrayal. Liam had entered into Jacob's tutelage with the expectation that he would be taught until such point as he could be considered a competent wizard on his own, and here he was: cut free years away from that degree.

"That miserable little crippled son of a bitch!" Liam snarled, clenching his hands into fists as he reverted to English mid-sentence. "I should go back there and club him with his own walking stick!" He continued cursing for several seconds before Caradas' voice cut through his ranting.

"Are ye about through, lad?" Liam whirled on the gnome, fully intending to let loose at him. He did nothing as the human opened his mouth, but the words died without utterance as he sensed something about Caradas he hadn't before, power far beyond his tiny frame, power Liam yet only dreamed of.

"I…" Liam stopped, and cleared my throat. "I…yes. I'm sorry. I was about to bite at you without provocation." His eyes fell to the trade goods, though they seemed as worthless as ash right now. "Do you still offer the safety deposit service?"

"Aye, that Ah do, lad. Ye're wantin' ta put these away, then?" He indicated the reagents Jacob wanted.

"Yes, that would be preferred." Liam groaned, pinching the bridge of his nose as a reaction headache to his earlier furor made a few tentative _thumps_ of pain. "How much is it per month?"

"Forty shikas, though you get a percentage of the remaining time back if you retrieve it early."

He ran his fingers through his hair, disheveling several locks from the tail Liam had tied it into.

"You saw what just happened." Liam motioned at the spot where Jacob had projected his illusion. "Can't you give me a little bit of a break, just this once? I'm willing to give up the percentage-back in favor of a cut on the rent."

Caradas grumbled for a few moments before nodding sharply. "Thirty shikas, an' tha storage ain't extradimensional. No percentage back fer early retrieval."

"That's more than acceptable, thank you." Liam bowed, then retrieved the list as he stood. The remaining four items seemed almost to mock him: black pearl powder, platinum dust, shell of dragon's egg.

The wizard's apprentice pulled out his workbook and slipped the list just under the front cover. He then counted out sixty shikas and handed them to Caradas and watched as he began casting, tracing out the shape of a cube, about one foot on a side. As his casting reached its peak a wan blue glow formed between his hands, coalescing into a barely visible field of energy.

"Go ahead, touch it." Caradas set it down on the counter beside my goods. Liam poked it, then pressed down on it with his full weight. It didn't budge, and it felt like a perfectly smooth and flat surface. A sledgehammer rose from behind the counter and offered itself to the human. The old gnome watched as Liam accepted it, and the box rose from the counter and settled on the floor in the middle of the store. The disc-shaped seat Caradas sat upon rose as he turned to face the box.

"I take it I'm supposed to try and break it open with this?"

"If ye can, lad, Ah'll keep yer things fer as long as ye need, free o'charge, and yer shikas'll be refunded."

"Good incentive." Liam hefted the hammer, then brought it down on the box with all his might.

Liam yelped as the jolt of impact ran up his arms and numbed his fingertips, making him yelp and drop the hammer. He scowled at the sound of the hammer clattering to the ground while trying to rub sensation back into his hands. Both hammer and box rose and returned to their original places, and Caradas slowly sank back down.

"This 'ere box locks wi' a verbal password." Caradas put a hand on the box and whispered something. The top panel lifted up and swung away, as though on a hinge on one side. "Ah'll tell ye tha password after she steps outside," he jutted his chin at Ardalia. She took the hint and walked to the door, silent. "Good. Remember this, lad: erakaliakkus. Try it." He shut the lid on the box. "Jus' put yer hand on it an' say tha password."

Liam did as instructed, but it took him several tries to get the word exactly right. Inflection seemed to be just as important as enunciation.

He put the vials and jars he'd traded for into the box, closed the lid, and then tried to pry it open. Liam couldn't even find a seam.

"That's a very nice spell." Liam nodded appreciatively. "I imagine that it's not a permanent effect, though?"

"Nay, 'tis jus' long-lastin'." Caradas grinned suddenly. "If'n ever ye achieve tha skill necessary, Ah'll teach ye tha spell, fer bein' such a good customer."

The apprentice smiled and nodded respectfully. "I look forward to that. You said your last customer was looking for help on a trip somewhere. Did he mention where he was going next?"

Caradas shook his head. "He didna mention anythin' specific, but Ah did suggest tha' he try in a tavern 'r two."

"They do normally have help-wanted boards," Liam mused. "And that is a good idea. Please, have a good day, and thank you again."

"See ya soon, lad."

Ardalia and Liam left the shop and made our way towards the nearest tavern. _Maybe I can find someone in need of a healer._

The young woman companion pulled Liam up short before long, frowning as she struggled to find the right words.

"Was…is there something wrong with his legs?" She looked as though worried she might give offence.

"Not anymore," Liam shook my head, recalling that he'd asked Jacob the exact same thing a few years back. "He had to get them amputated in order to stop a particularly pernicious disease. There's nothing below about here on him." The apprentice made a cutting motion across his thighs, about three inches below his groin. "What you saw was an illusion to keep customers from being uncomfortable."

"That's awful!" Ardalia gasped, heaving her bosom with the breath. _Was that meant to be enticing?_ "Why has he not chosen to have them regenerated?"

"I'm not sure. I think the disease might have been magical, and by the time the residual energies were eliminated it was probably too late. I've never discussed it with him, as it's personal and therefore not my business."

"You've an interesting sense of discretion," Ardalia murmured. Liam's jaw tightened.

"Can we go? I have a frightfully large and sudden debt to pay off."

"Oh! Yes, of course. How silly of me when you've much to do. Is there any way in which I can help?"

Liam didn't immediately respond, instead mulling the question over. Was there anything she could do? He doubted she or her family had several thousand shikas lying about and just begging to be used to assist her current crush.

_Or if they do, I doubted her family would be willing to part with it._

Immediately Liam chastised himself: though pragmatic, even the mere thought was unbecoming of a man.

As to less direct assistance, Liam wracked his brains yet could find nothing she might be able to provide that he could not himself. Liam could survive quite comfortably in his little hovel, and it served as both home and workplace. He also wasn't far enough from the city that he couldn't find some other job within its walls to finance his studies.

"Maybe David will know something," he murmured, glancing at the sun. _Unless his shift has been changed dramatically in the time since my last visit, I'll find him working._ "Come on, I've an idea."

The tavern David worked at was down near the wharf, and was commonly frequented by sailors – the rough and tumble sort – all eagerly looking for a drink or a fight or both.

Fortunately, it was the "dry" season while the cecaelia mated, so there were only a few customers. That and it was near noon, so anyone here probably had good reason to be left to their drink.

"Would David be in?" Liam asked a serving maid, a plain brunette wearing a dark brown linen skirt designed to reveal a hint of leg and catch the eye. _Perhaps long-denied sailors were known to pay more if their drinks were accompanied by a bit of eye-candy._

"Oh, are ye a friend of his?"

"Yes, an old friend of his." The apprentice smiled in what was my best approximation of a friendly manner and motioned at a table. "May we sit down? My name's Liam. He'll know me."

"Yes, of course, please have a seat anywhere ye like. I'll let him know ye're in right away."

"Thank you." Liam maneuvered Ardalia over to a less populated corner and silenced his suddenly queasy stomach. He hadn't seen David in quite a long time. _By the Trine and the Horned, I haven't seen him in nearly a year!_ The only contact they'd had with one another was in the form of messengers, their schedules too conflicted to make visits economical.

The serving maid brought out a couple earthenware tankards of ale, saying only "Compliments of the cook."

Liam looked at his and stifled a sigh. His first few experiences with ale had been less than encouraging. He had neither stomach nor head for the stuff, and his preference ran more for sweeter drinks. Ale was far too bitter a drink.

However, in the interests of politeness he raised it to his lips and took a polite sip, tensing in expectation of the bitterness. Surprise took him as he found the beverage to be more akin to fruit punch, though he could still detect just a hint of the sharp flavor of alcohol.

"This is quite good," Liam commented, taking a deeper gulp and setting the tankard off to the side. It would not do to become overly inebriated before the sun had even reached its zenith.

"I'm not too fond of sweets," Ardalia admitted, pushing hers to the side with only the barest of tastes taken.

Before she could utter another blasphemous word the door leading to the kitchen exploded into the dining area ahead of a column of flame. It embedded itself halfway through the street-facing wall like a huge, rectangular shuriken.

Ardalia shrieked as bits of flaming timbers rained down on us and our still drinks. Her voice rose several octaves as hordes of cackling and gibbering imps poured from the still-smoldering door-frame. A tall figure with impossibly large, black horns and incredible definition stepped through the door. Its flesh was ruby red and glistened as though wet.

"I have come for your souls!" It growled, its voice and tone promising agony eternal.

"That's nice," Liam replied. He took a sip of his drink. "How are you, David?"

"Who is this 'David'?" the red-skinned creature asked.

"You are," Liam said simply. "You may want to think about vibrations next time. That explosion and the door striking the wall? Both should have caused the building to shudder."

"Aww, you're no fun," the demon complained, melting back into the form of Liam's oldest friend. On Earth – before the Planeswalk Event that marooned them – he'd been a touch on the heavier side, but in his time here his fat had receded into muscle. While he'd never have much in the way of definition, he was built like a brick shithouse.

The hellish horde and structural damage faded to reveal nothing unusual about the tavern, but the girl who'd brought us our drinks had collapsed in laughter.

"Even she thinks you were a little over the top." Liam pointed at the maid.

"Miriam, stop that!" David snapped, though without any real bite. She just laughed harder. David growled, but turned away. "What brings my dear friend Liam – absent a year – to my humble establishment?"

"'Your' tavern?" The apprentice wizard asked, a little taken aback. "When did this happen?"

"The original owner willed it to me shortly before he died of anaphylactic shock." The last two words were spoken in English, as Palax contained no analogous term.

"Ah." Liam chose not to press. "Anyway, I need your help. Jacob has put my training on hold until I get him a few criminally expensive reagents. It was suggested that I find a 'help wanted' ad and try my hand at it. It was suggest that it is or can be good money."

"Yes, it can be," David murmured, toying with a prism-shaped piece of obsidian. "Adventuring can be incredibly lucrative. It's also exceptionally dangerous. I tried my hand at it a few months ago."

"What'd you do?"

"Just a bounty hunt. Some halfling thief stole Lady Ysana's navel ring."

"I heard about that," Ardalia chirped. "It was scandalous! Her own Aunt wearing body piercings!"

"Did you get it back?" Liam filed away Ardalia's comment for later. _If she doesn't like body modifications then she sure as shit won't like me sans clothing._

"Yup," David snorted. "The thief took it to the crypt of Boris Redhands. It was the key to some treasure or other that Boris had spent his life gathering, reputedly rescued from dragons' hoards alone. There wasn't much: just a double-handful of coins and some rotting furniture." He snorted again. "Useless junk. But anyway, why would you ask me?"

"I just thought that people would post ads in places where there's high traffic, such as your tavern here."

"We do get the occasional request to post a notice." Liam's friend stared at the obsidian prism for a few moments before turning to stare at the entrance. Liam followed his gaze to find the young, blond man from Caradas' shop letting his eyes adjust to the slightly gloomy tavern.

"Speak of the devil," Liam murmured in English. Reverting to Palax he said, "Good day, sir! I recall seeing you in the store of one Caradas, gnomish entrepreneur." Ardalia's stunned stare burned into the side of his head as Liam completely changed in attitude from his normally reserved and subdued behavior. Today she'd seen more emotion in him than in the past two years of flirting.

"Y-yes?" The blond man was taken aback by Liam's sudden outburst.

"I heard that you're looking for help with some task or another. Might I know what sort of aid you seek?"

For a few moments he stared at me, but then burst out with a brief guffaw of relief. "By the stars, I've yet to even post a notice and already I've some interest. I'm in need of some few who are willing to join me on an expedition to a ruined wizard's tower. Equal shares of any coin found."

"What of the dangers?" David asked, pointedly. "Any wizard's tower is sure to have defensive enchantments."

"Any venture is fraught with danger, my friend," the young man replied, gaining confidence as he gained momentum. "At any rate, the wizard in question is supposed to have been overly proud, and died of his hubris, leading me to think that his wealth is largely untouched."

"And if it isn't?"

"Then we would deal with it when the time comes." Liam cut in, feeling his blood begin to heat. _I doubt I'll acquire the thousands of shikas necessary from this single venture, it should – I hope – get me started._ "Beginning with observation, as all science requires."

David raised his eyebrows as he looked at his friend. "Isn't that supposed to be 'hypothesis'?"

Liam waved the comment away. "Never mind. You know what I mean."

"Can I count on your assistance?" the young man asked.

Liam's eyes unfocused as he thought about it. Then, "Yes. Everyone has to start somewhere. My name's Liam Faren. And yours is…?"

"Oh, how thoughtless of me. I'm Corian." Liam's eyebrows twitched as he noted the lack of a surname, but didn't react otherwise. He wasn't sure what it signified, whether shame or dishonor.

"A pleasure to meet you." They shook hands, then turned as one to look at David when he cleared his throat.

"I'll be joining your expedition." Liam threw him a puzzled look, and David answered in English, "What sort of friend would I be if I didn't lend a hand to one in need?"

The barmaid rushed up and slammed her hands on the table. "No! Ye aren't to vanish again!"

"Pardon?" David asked, darkly. Liam thought, _"Again"?_

"Ye're the only one who can make heads or tails of those recipes, Vixni. And ye'll be gone how long? How'm I supposed to get my wages, hmm? Trying to bugger off without paying me _again_?"

"If I give you the next month's wages now will you stop fussing?" That made Miriam pause for a long moment.

"There's still the matter of those recipes!"

"Then we'll close down until evening and you can transcribe what I dictate so that they're no longer exclusive to my comprehension. Is that fair?"

"My dear, sweet man," Miriam changed tactics immediately as she sidled up to David. "I have a little request for ye." The table blocked Liam's view, but in the next moment David dropped with a squeak, clutching his crotch. "Don't ye ever patronize me again, lout! When ye come back from this venture ye'd better be bringing a ring!" She flounced off into the back, and left David to recover his dignity.

"Lovely woman," he gasped, hauling himself upright. His face was rather pale, though Liam couldn't determine whether from having to face Miriam later or from the damage she'd just done. "I'll need a day or so to prepare. Is that acceptable, Corian?"

"I can wait a few more days than that, if necessary," the young man replied. "And I'll need time to gather a few more brave souls. Shall we say…two days hence, second hour past dawn at the Morris Gate?"

"That's fine with me." Liam nodded, mentally listing what he figured he might need. David concurred, and Corian left with a quick farewell. The cook friend excused himself to go begin his preparations with Miriam at his side, leaving only Ardalia and Liam.

"So you're going to be adventuring to pay off Jacob," she said, voice neutral.

Liam nodded as he took a sip of his drink, but hurriedly pushed it away as its full, true flavor had come into being. Apparently David had been disguising the flavor. "Theoretically I could pay him off simply by plying my trade. There's always a need for herbalists and healers. But that would take a lot more time than I'm willing to spare. This could be dangerous, but if we're careful and intelligent about it then that danger should be mitigated."

"But you could still die!" Ardalia burst out.

"Everybody dies sometime." Liam looked down at the table briefly, the tips of his ears slightly red. He then turned to look Ardalia in the eye for the first time that day. "And if I die on this venture, then it will be a little earlier than expected. Now if you'll excuse me, I need time to plan."

Liam slipped out from the table and was out the door before she could even muster a response.

It took Corian only a day to find two more companions, and then they were off on the eight-day trip to Fairhill. Four days later…

The rain pouring through the canopy was directed by the foliage into thick columns of water. Only by the grace of the gods had they found perhaps the only spot for miles sheltered enough to build a fire. Even in so typically hot a climate as the Kerist region and despite the environmental equilibrium spell Liam had maintained almost continually since learning to cast it, he still had trouble shaking the chill.

_You'd think I'd learn to expect the cold after six years._ Liam thought forlornly, pulling his borrowed canvas tarp tighter around his shoulders. It was a poor substitute for a cloak against the chill, but served to keep the rain off.

"You awake?"

The question came from the young man who'd decided to share the first watch with Liam: Alan. A slender lad of sixteen or so, he stared at the apprentice from a face gradually being washed clean of months of dirt and grime by the rain he willingly sat under, revealing flesh smoothed by its perpetual mud bath. He disdained to approach the fire, always cautious to avoid looking at it. His clothing consisted of a ragged linen shirt and pants sized for someone twice his size, cinched tight with a rope.

"Yeah, still." Liam replied, running a hand through his hair. It was still plastered to his skull. Flare was sending waves of hostility at his master through their bond as he huddled behind Liam, under the tarp. _At least he's stopped yowling._ "Not that I was expecting all excitement or anything, but this? This is bullshit."

"I hear you," Alan replied, his voice always quiet, always even. His eyes darted to the side. "Do you hear?"

Liam followed his gaze, but for a time only heard the constant downpour. Then he caught a faint sound not unlike a mosquito. Alan had been watching his co-sentry's as he listened, and grunted when he saw Liam's face shift.

"What is that?" Liam asked in dismay. The sounds were coming from too far away to be mosquitoes.

"Stirges. Sounds like three."

"Are they dangerous?"

"They drink blood, and are as big as your cat."

"Dangerous, then." Liam confirmed, but blinked when Alan shook his head.

"Fun," he countered with a grin, holding up his hands. His fingers lengthened and grew sharp, like knives. "You good in a fight?"

"I don't know." Liam admitted, reaching into one of the belt pouches he used to store spell components. He pulled out a small handful of sand. "I've a trick or two."

They waited as the others slumbered on, and the stirges drew steadily closer. Liam couldn't say why they didn't wake the others, but perhaps Alan's self-confidence had something to do with his abandoned sanity.

They came suddenly, darting through the rainy columns like crosses between noisy bats and oversized mosquitoes. It wasn't quite true that they were as big as Flare: they were – in fact – slightly larger.

The first made a beeline for Alan, but his first swipes tore through its belly and mangled several legs before it even snagged him with a single foot, but when it did it brought the remaining two into action and gripped him with surprising force.

The next circled around and tried to sneak up on Alan, but though his one hand was occupied with trying to pry off the first stirge he was still able to use his free hand to slice off one of the second's wings. It, too, managed to snag Alan and plunged its proboscis into his shoulder.

The third was almost upon Liam before he managed to give voice and movement to the spell of slumber. The stirge – sole target of a spell designed to enchant four times as many if not more – fell asleep in mid-flight and tumbled to a halt in his arms, though I dropped it and sprang back when one of its legs tried to snag his shirt. Flare was on it in a flash, savagely ripping it apart with bloodthirsty glee Liam could sense through their bond.

The two stirges attached to Alan began to swell with blood, but fell into shreds when he became a whirling dervish of claws and teeth. When he stopped and the stirges were dead, Liam saw that his posture had become hunchbacked and his jaws had elongated into a lupine-like grin. He glanced at Liam from the corner of his eye and turned away, his hands returning to normal.

The wizard approached carefully as he plucked bits of stirge off his body and used the rain-waterfalls to rinse off his own blood.

He flinched as Liam laid a hand on his hunched shoulder, but didn't move away. Liam checked the injuries he'd taken from the stirges. It looked like he'd been stabbed with plastic straws, the kind used for slushies.

"We need to bind your wounds, else they'll become infected. That'd be a bad thing."

"No! No bindings, no wrappings!" Alan jumped away from the wizard and crouched in the mud, like a wild animal.

_What happened to you?_ Liam wondered, crouching himself. This served to make him seem smaller and less aggressive. "That's fine, then. I won't wrap anything around you." He showed Alan his hands so the teenager could see he held nothing. "But your wounds still need to be cared for. I can do that another way, though it's not my first preference. All I need is to be able to touch them." _Gods, that sounds creepy._

"You won't bind me?" He asked, somewhat plaintively.

"That's right," Liam soothed. "I know a spell of healing, but to use it I need to touch you. Will that be alright?"

Alan circled around as he considered, more on all fours. He'd almost circled Liam completely before moving closer and waiting patiently just within reach.

"Not here. I need my workbook for this, and I'll need the fire for its light."

He stiffened, but otherwise said nothing as he followed Liam back toward the fire, pointedly squatting with his back to the flames. This suited Liam just fine as he rummaged through my satchel and pulled out his workbook. He flipped to the relevant page and perused its contents, repeating the prayer and mental exercises to himself over and over again to ascertain his familiarity. He could count on one hand the number of times he'd used the spell over the years.

Once certain he could work through the spell without faltering Liam took out his necklace, from which hung a simple silver pentacle. He whispered the incantation to it – more prayer than formula – and watched as it began to glow a soft blue. The spell filled his mind as warmth gathered in his hand, the same blue light as lit his pentacle gathering in his palm.

As his chanting drew to a close Liam laid that hand on Alan's back, ignoring the sudden stiffening and resulting wince as his wounds sent fiery needles of agony into the surrounding flesh. He could almost see in his mind the red of Alan's pain, like the rays of a particularly angry sun. It was into this that he channeled the energies he'd been gathering, drawing them forth from the plane of living force in a gentle flow, formed with the simple intent to heal.

Such spells didn't actually heal per se. What they did was give the body an enormous surge of energy, and the intent woven into that energy gave it the sole purpose of rejuvenating at truly superhuman speeds, giving the appearance of an injury seeming to flash into nothingness. In some cases Liam had heard of, it actually provided some of the mass necessary for more serious injuries.

Case in point, as Liam completed the spell blue-white light flashed briefly beneath the palm touching Alan's back, before moving to coalesce in his wounds. His flesh knit together in less time than it would've taken Liam to blink, and the glow that had suffused it dissipated into the rest of his body, presumably to take care of any other ills he might have suffered.

"Thank you," Alan murmured, shifting his shoulder to test the results. "You are thorough."

"'An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.'" Liam quoted, voice quiet as he examined his handiwork with a critical eye and gentle, probing fingers. The injuries had healed completely, in and out. Excellent. "Who's got the next watch?"

"That would be me," a woman's voice stated calmly. Alan and Liam turned as one to stare into the glittering eyes of Tsuyarra Il-Na'Tani, which roughly translated from Elven to "of the rain." She stared back at them from beneath an oiled cloak, hands folded inside robes whose orange and red made me think of oak trees in autumn. "If you seek to continue your flirtations, please do so quietly."

Liam jerked his fingers from Alan's back – where he'd been yet to remove them – as though burned.

"That's unnecessary." The wizard replied dryly. Tsuyarra had somehow divined his primary orientation the first moment she'd laid eyes on him outside the Morris Gate of Kerist-Alshoon, where Corian had introduced the party to one another. To date she'd somehow managed to give voice to insinuation after venomous insinuation every time she opened her mouth. She could've given drag queens lessons in backhanded compliments. Liam glanced at Alan and switched from Palax to Milava: the elves' language. "One also finds another's continuing barbs to be ongoing disrespect, and one wonders if another is truly an elf."

Tsuyarra smiled beatifically, and replied in kind. "One considers another unworthy to be here. One hopes another will return home soon. You are not welcome." The last was spoken in Palax.

"One will when one no longer has to rely on another's bumbling." Liam grumbled, a vague reference to the fact that all the mages involved in the attempt to rebuild the planar bridge from this world to Earth had failed, and often messily. All known attempts had stopped years ago.

Liam resolutely wrapped himself in his tarp, back to the fire and Flare stalking in to claim the territory my chest and belly could have had. Stones and roots dug into his flesh all up his side, but Liam stubbornly refused to shift.

It took less than a minute of such discomfort before he resolved to buy a pallet much as Tsuyarra used.

They broke camp at about ten in the morning, a decision made after the others heard Tsuyarra's report on what had occurred the previous night.

Still, it granted Liam the time necessary to recoup the energies he'd expended.

"Ah, much better." Liam sighed in relief as the spell designed to keep his body cool in a nearly tropical climate came into effect. The spell only lasted a day. _If only there were a method by which I can ensure its permanency…_

"What's better?" Corian asked, looking at Liam curiously.

"Didn't you hear?" Liam cocked his head as he replied. "The Incantation of Temperate Regulation?"

Corian shook his head. "You have an odd accent that makes your words difficult to comprehend, and you speak very quickly."

"You sure know how to make a guy feel special." Liam muttered, tucking my workbook away. David, Tsuyarra and Alan were dancing to get on their way…after a fashion. David stood tapping his foot, Tsuyarra held herself in such utter stillness she couldn't be anything but impatient, and Alan wandered about, poking at things as if he'd never seen them before.

"Are you about ready?" David asked in too light a voice. "Perhaps you need a few more minutes to coif your hair?"

"No coffee this morning?" Liam retorted, wincing as a few kinks reacted poorly to his stretching. Flare hissed his resentment as he inadvertently shared his aches through their link.

"They've yet to discover it." David growled as they set off. "As well live in caves."

The rain had petered off through the night, and as the party walked the sky cleared and the sun shone down brightly. The night's dampness quickly evaporated and with it any trace of dismal attitude. So what if the road was little more than a muddy morass? They were more or less dry, and Liam had more than enough salve to treat foot-rot.

Not long after noon Alan loped off-road with no more than a murmured "wait", to return with an armful of oranges. When Tsuyarra questioned him about their owners, he shrugged and simply said, "Wild."

The fruits were a delicious snack that held the group through the afternoon until dusk, when David felled a deer-like animal locally known as a veshk. Together with some roots he gathered and the zest from all the orange peels he'd taken before the group could toss them, he made a nice little stir-fry.

"You are most resourceful, Master David," Corian commented after polishing off his second plate. His words were directed at the kit David had tucked into his pack.

As the cook cleaned his utensils he shrugged noncommittally, casually responding "It's nothing. I figure somebody should be prepared."

Liam bristled at the remark, but said nothing.

_There's no need to take offence at every little comment._ Liam admonished silently, opening his workbook to review the formula for a spell he'd been working on for the last couple weeks. It was nothing fancy: just a minor cantrip to help with personal grooming. _I can't believe I still can't use these peoples' excuse of a razor without cutting myself!_

He was close to perfecting the final sequence.

"Could everyone gather near?" Corian asked gently.

The wizard's knuckles whitened momentarily. _What now?_

With an effort he closed his workbook without slamming it, carefully smoothed any trace of frustration from his features and faced the young sorcerer with as much outward calm as he could muster.

"The raging fire hears naught but its own flames," Tsuyarra murmured quietly, arranging her robes as she sat beside the wizard.

"The incautious dove disturbs a cat," Liam muttered back. Flare sneezed, then continued cleaning his claws of the remnants of an unfortunate rat.

Corian glanced at Liam and Tsuyarra, a clear indication that he had heard their exchange but he possessed greater mastery over his features than the wizard. _Perhaps there's something in my posture that gives away my emotions._

When neither of them said anything, the sorcerer nodded curtly and began to speak. "I am grateful for your patience with my silence on the details of this venture. I had to be certain we were far enough from possible prying eyes and ears." He took a breath. "Not long ago I learned of a wizard named Fluvian Tanis. He sought the immortality of lichdom, but an old friend of his I spoke with mentioned that Tanis had nowhere near the arcane strength necessary to commit to such a transformation."

"So what makes you think that Fluvian is dead?" David asked. "We wouldn't be halfway to Fairhill by now if you believed him to be alive."

Corian nodded and answered "That old friend of his I mentioned hasn't heard from Fluvian in twenty years, and they've been friends since childhood. I can't believe they would simply suddenly stop communicating with one another. Since Erik – his friend – believes Tanis didn't have the strength to complete the rite, and a letter from Tanis indicates he was about to go through with it regardless, I believe Fluvian Tanis attempted and failed the rite, and in so doing has died."

"If he was about to go through with this ritual, what makes you think he'd leave his home unprotected?" Liam asked.

"I don't," Corian replied dryly, reaching into his tunic. "However, since Tanis and Erik were good friends Tanis sent this amulet in the event that his friend should want to visit. Erik has always been somewhat…forgetful. At least he has for as long as I've known him. Anyway, this amulet is supposed to be able to allow Erik into the keep where Tanis made his home."

Suddenly Alan leapt to his feet, staring at the largest raven any of them had ever seen. Its eyes glowed with hellish red light, but no sooner had all our attention focused on it than it launched itself into the gathering dusk.

Corian's hands moved furiously through the movements of a spell, its verbal component swallowed by the clamor as the party leapt up with a shout. A sparkling sphere leapt from his finger, trailing silver in its wake like a comet as it streaked through the night. It crashed into the raven, both illuminating and momentarily knocking the bird off course before it escaped into shadows.

The sorcerer spat a curse. "That was Talon. I was hoping we'd gotten far enough away, but I guess I was wrong. He's the familiar of Kashya, Erik's apprentice. I was afraid they were too interested in this expedition."

"Why not take her along?" Alan asked.

"Because she's treacherous, and I don't feel safe in her presence," Corian replied in a soft voice. "Can I recommend we travel through the night?"

"Is that what Kashya would expect you to do?" The sorcerer looked at Liam sharply. The wizard spread his hands and shrugged. "It's smarter to sleep without a fire tonight, and stay farther back from the road. A hunter can pull down prey that is weak and tired more easily than that which is rested."

"But she knows where we are!" Corian protested. Liam disagreed.

"She knows where we were when her raven found us. And unless I miss my guess she'd be at as much of a disadvantage as us."

The wizard's arguments was logical, and the sorcerer changed tactics. "I thought you were a wizard. Where would you have picked up lore like that?"

Liam smiled without humor. "I am nothing if not my father's son; I have many skills."

Corian grunted and turned away as David groaned.

"You did not just quote Xena," he muttered flatly in English. "I refuse to believe that."

"Believe what you wish," Liam replied in kind, smirking. His grin evaporated quickly, though.

Life and death situations were usually avoided at all costs on Earth. Peaceful life with only a one-in-a-hundred chance of getting mugged, and almost none of dying. Here, a shouting match could end with someone's guts spilling into the street. And they had to be careful with this Kashya character. Though Liam didn't know her personality, but he could readily imagine her readying an ambush in order to steal whatever knowledge she could glean out from under Corian's nose.

These people never seemed to understand the concept of sharing after passing through adolescence.

_And I've yet to learn not to pass judgment. Sigh._ Liam's thoughts turned away from the matter at hand and back to his grooming spell. _I'll deal with what comes when it comes._

There was no attack that night – though they all were jumpy and slept poorly – nor did any attack come during the next two days.

About the only event of note was when Liam finished the grooming spell, and caused six and a half years of rough-trimmed beard to part from his face.

Near sunset of the sixth day of travel they saw a small farmstead. Storm clouds gathered to the east, threatening a heavy downpour. The farm was perhaps another half-hour's walk, and the party discussed decisions as they marched.

"Perhaps we can beg shelter there for tonight," David suggested. Liam sensed a wave of agreement from Flare as the bipedal folk agreed without reservation.

"Let's hurry, then." Corian looked behind, toward the sky. "I'd like to be dry through this next storm."

As they drew closer they gradually realized there was something very wrong. Perhaps it was the lack of any voices. Or maybe the animals milling about, free of their pens.

Then again, it was in all likelihood the half-eaten corpse of a youngish man lying before the front door. From the way he was positioned it looked like he'd been cut down, defending his family.

Through the door Liam could see the bodies of a young woman and two children; the younger boy of which had been completely disemboweled.

The group approached in somber silence, spreading out to search the scene for evidence of what had happened.

Alan and Tsuyarra checked the yard, the young man flexing his hands into claws with a disturbing casualness.

David and Corian went right into the house, leaving Liam with the bodies of the farmer, his wife and his children. Flare sniffed daintily around the bodies as the wizard gave each an examination, maintaining a silent litany of thanks to his instructor – Aidan Vigoth, the lay-priest of Echeriel who'd taught herb lore and mundane healing – had also included some basic autopsy education.

The father had lost his arm before dying – lots of blood spray all over the place – cause of death a long, curved blade – probably belonging to an axe – lodging itself in his ribcage, splitting his heart in two. The woman had taken a sword to the gut, bleeding out slowly before they cut her throat.

The two children were a different matter. Both had puncture wounds that oozed a clear, viscous substance when Liam pressed down to either side of the injuries. The amount of blood on the ground testified that they'd died from slashed throats, but there were no defensive wounds or any other signs of struggle…almost like they had simply dropped and someone had bled them out.

It was around these that Flare paced restlessly, radiating apprehension so strongly it was a wonder no one else could sense it.

"I wish I could speak with you," Liam muttered, scratching his familiar's head. He ducked away before long as the wizard's trembling fingers irritated him. Taking a deep breath Liam turned his attention back to the problem at hand. He touched the pad of a little finger to the ooze and almost immediately found it difficult to feel the tip. "A toxin with a desensitizing component…interesting." Liam glanced at the corpse it'd come from. "Maybe a paralytic?"

With quick movements he harvested as much of the poison as he could, storing it in a glass vial spelled to keep its contents from spoiling – a gift from Jacob last year. Once it was safely stowed away for later analysis he glanced up to see how Tsuyarra and Alan were faring. They'd found another body belonging to a little girl who appeared to be the youngest of the three children, but when they brought her over a quick exam gave no indication of the toxin: she'd died of weapons alone.

"What happened here?" Tsuyarra asked, horror draining the color from her face.

"I doubt these people could have annoyed anyone enough to bring this result," Liam replied, focusing all his attention on the elf and trying to ignore the bodies he could still see in his peripheral vision. It was a struggle to freeze his emotions. If he started freaking out at this point he'd have but one course to swiftly get a handle on his self. _Have to think of something else._ "Are there bandits in the region?"

Tsuyarra jerked her gaze away from the bodies, locked her eyes on mine. Something in her gaze seemed somehow young. Almost innocent.

"How old are you?" Liam's words were soft, his focus entirely on her and not on the eerie and unreasonable sensation that he had to be standing knee deep in blood.

"One has seen one hundred-seventeen passes under the constellation of Inigami," the elf replied in her native language, barely blinking.

_Little more than a teenager by elven standards,_ Liam realized. Some of her earlier behavior became clearer, her snarkiness not that of someone intending to be a miserable cunt but rather of someone who's yet to achieve maturity. _We have more in common than I realized._

"One believes another should come away from the door so that the atrocities committed don't weigh upon another's mind with their presence."

Tsuyarra started, then shook herself and glared at Liam with all the gravity a terrified little girl could muster.

"I am an Initiate of the Order of Pa-Deinis Thra, third granddaughter of the Holy Grandmaster and I do not flee before horror." Despite her words her face remained pale and tight, and her voice quavered a little. She glanced down quickly before returning her gaze to Liam's. Her throat bobbed as she swallowed. "No matter how great. How are you so calm?"

Liam throttled down hysterical laughter even as it bubbled in his chest. "I look calm? I'm about to shatter. The only thing keeping me together is the Crone's Litany."

Tsuyarra looked uncertain and less than comfortable as she asked "I'm not familiar with that chant, but does it not involve a prayer to monsters?"

"Not the one I know. It's part of a Goddess invocation cycle." Liam took a breath began to recite. "'Northern wind blow cruel, blow cold; sheathe my aching heart in ice. All around my soul enfold, Crone I need not call you twice. To my foes bring cold of death! Shield me, north wind's frozen breath.'"

"I believe it would be to my benefit to hear the entire cycle, at a more appropriate time."

Corian and David had returned from their search of the house down during my recitation, and spread their hands helplessly.

"There are no other bodies," Corian announced, heading towards the front door.

"And this wasn't a robbery," David added. At his words Liam invoked a protective spell to create defensive planes of force about his body. Flare's nearness ensured he received the same protections. "There was no search of the house, nor were any goods stolen. They were killed for no apparent reason."

"All the more reason for us to leave," Corian replied, stepping outside. Almost immediately his body jerked as several scarlet bolts of energy slammed into him, the impact throwing him backward into the house just as a pair of arrows struck just where his chest had been.

"Shut the door!" David roared, performing the task himself with little care for how the closing door affected Corian. The young man lay on the ground with wide and unseeing eyes, his breath coming in short, shallow gasps.

Liam knelt quickly and rushed through a healing incantation, the words tumbling out in a confusing rush. Blue-white light flared up beneath hands pressed to Corian's face, and his flesh knit together, halting his descent into the darkness of death.

"What was that?" David demanded.

"Looked like a spell of arcane force-bolts." Liam answered, helping the sorcerer to stand. Fishing around in his bag Liam pulled out a couple rolled up scrolls. He handed one to Corian and kept the other. The sorcerer looked at his brother arcanist oddly.

"What is this?"

"Protection against the spell that nearly killed you. It only lasts for a minute, so wait until you face whomever cast it at you before you use it, please."

Before Corian could respond part of a ghastly grey sigil appeared on the ground, tremors spreading beneath our feet.

"What was that?!" Tsuyarra demanded when the quaking stopped and the sigil vanished, her eyes widened to reveal white all around. Alan had put a hand against the wall to steady himself but otherwise seemed unperturbed. Corian and Liam stared down at the floor with more than a little curiosity. _Even obscured like this I should at least recognize portions…but I've never seen anything like it._

David, however, cursed and spat on the floor. When the others' eyes fell upon him he snarled, "It's a necromantic glyph. Someone's about to make the dead rise."

_Figures: Jacob just glossed over that particular school._ What little Liam knew he'd cobbled together on his own and could fit in a thimble.

The symbol's lines flared brightly before vanishing, and the trembling ceased.

After a moment Alan asked "Is that it?"

Then a skeletal arm shot up through the floor, scattering bits of wood all about. It was followed by a second carrying a club that seemed to have been made from a fused spine. Together they levered a full skeleton out from the ground, just as another skeleton wielding a pair of ribs fashioned into daggers made its appearance just inside the wall. Outside I heard three more clawing their way out of makeshift graves, the sounds seeming to indicate they were spaced in a circle around a single point located just outside.

"Ah, wondrous!" Tsuyarra exclaimed, eyes bright as she took a martial artist's stance. The spine-wielding skeleton turned at the sound of her voice and began approaching, raising its "weapon" to strike. The elven woman struck twice with her bare hands, the first going right under the skeleton's ribcage as though she were trying to knock its wind out, while the second cracked a few of its ribs.

Liam tried to step back as the other skeleton lunged at him, but something caught his feet and he stumbled and fell backward, nearly flattening Flare.

The body of the littlest girl began crawling up towards his throat, a terrible rasping sound coming from her throat. Her eyes were milky and even as Liam watched her flesh seemed to grow taut, as though drying out.

"Aww, shit!" Liam cried out, kicking at her as hard as he could. No matter how many times he booted her in the face she just kept coming…but at least her progress was stymied.

The other bodies that had been brought into the cabin began to stir as well, and the man's sounded like it was pounding at the door.

Tsuyarra erupted with another flurry of strikes as the spine-wielding skeleton swung at her. Her first punch knocked its head clear off, but the second came as the creature started to collapse. Somehow the elf's hand got caught underneath the skeleton's collarbone, and as it fell all heard an audible _SNAP_ that did not come from the dispatched undead.

She shrieked as she fell with the body's remnants, though as they hit the floor the skeleton vanished into wisps of smoke.

Flare leapt upon the little girl-zombie crawling toward Liam's throat and proceeded to bite and gnaw at her, anger and distress coursing through his empathic link. Liam was pretty distressed himself, but started to feel better when he remembered his dagger and pulled it out.

His mood began to fade when he started stabbing it into the zombie's body. Unholy abomination fuelled by negative energy or not, it still looked like a little girl and as apathetic as Liam tried to be he couldn't kill a little girl-shaped entity and feel nothing.

The others took care of the animated corpses as soon as David caved the rib-wielding skeleton's skull in, collapsing it into a pile of dust. They bashed, slashed, stabbed or bit the zombies back to death all while Liam fought the child's body, all manner of spells fleeing in the face of animated corpses.

He was still stabbing it long after it stopped moving, and it was only when David seized his arm and restrained him from continuing that Liam realized what he'd done.

His dagger fell from nerveless fingers and he tasted bile. Numbly and only semi-consciously he reached into his satchel and felt around for a vial of concentrated Essence of Lady's Tears. Women of rank in Nagret used a diluted version to take the edge off particularly strong emotions that might cause fainting…or so said the men who pushed it upon them. Uncorking it, Liam inhaled from it only the barest amount of vapor possible.

Almost immediately his horror receded, as did all other emotions. With detached calm he replaced the cork and stood, shaking off the remnants of the zombie's assault.

"Are…are you alright?" David asked as all Liam's hysteria dissipated.

"Perfectly fine." Liam's voice was unnaturally calm. "Merely a dose of Lady's Tears." Now the Crone's Litany was not merely a chant, but a fact. At least for the next hour or so, and then he'd have several hells' worth of a headache.

"Are you sure that's safe?" Corian asked. Liam glanced at the door, now shuddering under the blows from the undead outside and answered in a dispassionate voice.

"As much as your concern will touch me later, I believe of greater import are the creatures out there." A particularly emphatic blow shook the door and cracked the hinges.

David spoke words of power that resonated hollowly in his throat, and his gestures drew shadows about his body like the scarves of a dancer. They floated into place in layers, wrapped about an arm and hanging from his body in a vague shape similar to that of a suit of armor.

"We've got three skeletons out there and the zombie-farmer, plus whoever actually raised the dead and a minimum of two archers." David glared at the door as a sword-like femur was thrust through and almost immediately wrenched out. "We're trapped in here, one of us is useless, and unless I've missed something not one of us has a bow or sling."

"To thin the herd, why not let the undead in?" Liam asked, watching the cracks in the door forming the most fascinating design. "At the least we can deal with them and then scout out the remainder we're facing."

Alan walked to the door, hunched over and face extended into the muzzle seen a couple days earlier. In a growling voice he said "That works for me" and yanked the door open. The zombie had been in the process of hurling itself at the door, and with its target removed it fell into the room. Unbalanced and surprised – insomuch as an unthinking abomination could be "shocked" – Alan's first swipe tore through its belly and released coils of intestines, his other hand missed by a wide margin but carried enough force to spin him around. Fortunately, at this point he'd latched his jaws onto the zombie's throat and his momentum tore it free, making visible the farmer's spine.

Corian took the opportunity to incant a spell, causing one of his hands to glow with pure positive energy. Unlike that which Liam had used to heal him earlier, this was ungoverned by any form of intent, and crackled chaotically. Even the barest of touches from luminous fingers caused burns as the spell's energy swept through the zombie's body. The wizard later learned it had caused disruptions to the "natural" flow of negative energy within the undead's form.

Two of the skeletons darted into the house on the zombie's tail, laying about with their femoral swords. The first had attacked Corian, but the young man somehow managed to turn the blow aside and avoided any serious harm beyond a torn robe.

Alan was not nearly so lucky. The second skeleton thrust its sword into his gut with enough force to lift him off his feet, and the only sound he managed was a pitiful squeak before the skeleton ripped its sword out and whirled to attack again.

Perhaps it'd been a swordsman in a previous life.

The zombie reached out a hand toward Alan and tried to grab him, but the young man stumbled back, hands returned to normal and clasped to his injury. And so the zombie shuffled in Alan's direction, only to fall as David took its head off with a long, curved blade.

The third skeleton started to move in, fixing its hollow-socketed gaze on Corian as it shouldered aside the skeleton that'd skewered Alan. This caused a bit of a kerfuffle as the one knocked aside turned and stabbed the fixated one through the chest.

Obviously, this did no real damage but Fixation looked down at the bone-blade hilt-deep between two ribs and swung its skull-headed mace at Skewer, collapsing part of its skull. Skewer backed down and turned back to Alan as Fixation returned to Corian, raising its mace as it stepped forward again, but Tsuyarra was there with her broken wrist cradled and kept steady by her free hand. She leapt up and kicked off Skewer's head, causing the skeleton to disintegrate even as she lashed out with her other foot at Fixation before landing. She didn't manage a particularly solid hit, but it caused Fixation to stumble and reorient on her.

As the elf and skeletons fought – Tsuyarra managing even with her injury – Liam pulled out his necklace and whispered a prayer. _"Azure, grant unto me thy favour, that I might work thy will in this world."_ The pentacle flashed a brilliant blue as divine forces acknowledged his words. Its light misted over Liam and sank into his body, leaving a sensation of guidance in its wake.

Corian zapped Fixation with a crackling beam of positive energy while backing away from the fray, and the undamaged skeleton thrust its sword at Corian, trying to impale him like Alan. Again the sorcerer turned, somehow using his robes to catch the blade and keep it from causing him grievous harm.

To Liam's surprise Alan made a comeback by dashing forward and slashing at Fixation, apparently unconcerned about the big gaping hole in his belly…which didn't seem to be bleeding as much a gut wound should have. His blurring claws shredded Fixation, leaving only one skeleton.

A woman outside screamed with obvious frustration as David and Tsuyarra dismantled it.

David glanced outside and spat, reporting "One woman, two big men. Hiding in the tree line."

"That voice belonged to Kashya," Corian added, peeking through the window. "Maybe we can-" Whatever he'd been about to say was choked off as he stiffened, going pale as a sheet before dropping to the floor like someone had switched him off.

Liam rushed to his side and felt around quickly, finding wetness against the sorcerer's side. It was spreading in a way he didn't like, especially when my fingers started going numb. The wizard was about to try removing his robe to treat the injury when he noticed how Corian's clothes were being shifted about. It was almost as though someone were rifling through them…

Touching his pentacle, Liam narrowed his eyes and hissed a prayer in the teeth-gnashing language of the Abyss. _"Azure, I beg of thee a touch of the darkness trapped by thy greatness!"_ Darkness coalesced about his hand, crackling as it drained life from the very air. Giving it his best guess, Liam thrust his shrouded hand at the space just above where the rifling was being concentrated, and was rewarded as his fingers closed about a small form. The spell discharged and a tiny voice squealed in pain, echoed by the woman outside as a man-like body became visible.

Flare charged in and pounced on the creature as Liam released it, and it spent several panicked moments trying to disengage itself from his familiar's claws. The wizard took the time to look at it as the last vestiges of its invisibility shredded away like water boiling off. The creature was certainly man-like, had slick skin the color of steel and horns and teeth like blackened iron. Its barbed, scorpion-like tail curled and struck again and again, trying to penetrate the magical armor safeguarding my cat while leathery, bat-like wings buffeted Flare in a desperate bit to escape.

Liam could almost taste the creature's bitter, black blood as Flare bit and clawed again and again, tearing whole strips of flesh from its body. Almost as soon as these became disengaged from its body they melted and bubbled away.

Finally, with Herculean effort the bat-winged thing managed to throw Flare off and struggled out the window, menacing Liam with its stinger when he tried to grab it. The familiar vibrated with barely suppressed fury that his prey had escaped. He paced back at forth, glaring up at the window but not jumping up into it, demonstrating common sense far beyond a normal animal.

Alan made as if to dash out the door after the little demon, but David barred his passage while watching from the doorway.

"No," he shook his head as Alan started to speak. "We're better protected here than out there, and they've got a clear view of the door. We'd be pincushions before we got past the fence." David frowned and squinted as though unsure of what he was looking at. "They're leaving. That's it, we're staying here." He turned to peer at Alan, his eyes widening alarmingly. "Why are you not writhing in pain?"

Alan poked at his wound and shrugged. "I learned swiftly to increase the resilience of flesh. It is not fatal. I'll live."

"Still…" David shook his head. "Liam, how's Corian?"

"Give me a minute, please." The wizard turned his attention back to the sorcerer, removing the young man's robes and finding leather armor beneath. "Why in the world would an arcanist want to wear armor? I'll never know this, I'm sure." Removing it may have helped, but Liam could tell the injury itself was non-fatal and relatively minor. The poison was the problem, and he had no treatment for venom of this sort. _I can treat a spider bite…but not this._ He said as much as he checked Corian's vitals. His breathing was shallow and his pulse erratic, but again: nothing Liam could do for him except keep him comfortable. "I believe it is a paralytic, and the demonic nature of the predator leads me to believe it may be non-lethal as that would be more inherently cruel. I'll monitor him, but there's nothing I can do."

"What sort of healer are you, to give up so quickly?" Tsuyarra demanded.

"One currently unhindered by emotions that would otherwise interfere with logical processes." I shrugged. "Do you wish me to look at your arm? It sounded like it had been broken."

"Pain is preferable to the touch of a drug addict," Tsuyarra pointedly looked away from Liam. David clenched his jaw.

"Liam, how much do you have left in the way of healing magic? I'd like to at least get Alan closed up."

The wizard's gaze lingered on Tsuyarra for a moment longer before turning his full attention to Alan, a hand wrapped about his necklace. "This, I can do."

They stayed that night in the farmhouse after cautiously clearing the remnants of the family out and burying them in the yard, fashioning makeshift grave markers of stone cairns. By that time the Lady's Tears had worked its way through Liam's system and he was feeling again, albeit in considerable pain from the hangover headache.

Rather than dose himself with willowbark tea Liam dealt with it through stubborn force of will, an odd notion of guilt attached to it.

_Nonsense! I am not an addict, no matter what Tsuyarra says._

This had been only the third time that he'd used Lady's Tears, and the second time didn't count because Liam had dropped the vial and filled Jacob's house with its vapors.

That was why Jacob had been so supportive of Liam building his own place.

The family's shrine was to Echeriel, and as the closest thing to a priest the group had Liam murmured a prayer that they be held safely and in peace in his/her eternal gardens.

On seeing that Liam hadn't chosen another medication to deal with the hangover Tsuyarra allowed him to inspect her arm…or perhaps the pain was simply too much for her to bear. The wizard cooked up a poultice to reduce the swelling before he set the bones and splinted them in place, somehow forgetting to give her a painkiller in the process.

Alan received the benefit of Liam's last healing spells, minor prayers designed more for short-term stabilization than actual healing, but they closed his external injuries and prevented infection from being a real factor until Liam could gather the mental fortitude necessary to work greater healing magic.

David – being the only one truly unscathed by the battle – took it upon himself to search the building top to bottom and came up with precious few belongings, including a battered old sword hanging above the fireplace in the common room: an heirloom, but one that resonated with magic. A careful examination suggested it was enchanted with a basic enhancement, but Liam's experience with such was minimal.

Corian survived his poisoning, and heat from the fire seemed to speed his recovery. He indicated that his limbs felt as though fused together and then coated in several layers of lead, at which point Liam decided they needed to delay departure to give him a little bit of time to recover.

There was no evidence of who the family had been, though perhaps someone in Fairhill would know them. They would know in three days. A day longer here to recover, and then two days' travel to Fairhill.

_A truly glorious beginning to my adventuring career._


	2. Chapter 2

"Do you think you could wipe that smile off your face?" Tsuyarra demanded. "It is far from comforting."

Liam shuddered with waves of predatory pleasure as Flare stalked butterflies, bursts of true amusement punctuating when he jumped out of the tall grass like a leaping dolphin. Quivering with the rush of downing one's prey as his familiar caught a monarch butterfly, Liam coughed with a bit of discomfort.

"Sorry, it's a bit distracting."

"Your pet is rather entertaining, but that's no reason to smile so madly."

"It's not just his antics," Liam explained, changing the poultice on Tsuyarra's arm. His magic wasn't strong enough to heal a broken bone, so he'd been reduced to mundane remedies. With any luck, Fairhill would have a healer sufficient in power to deal with such wounds. The break was clean, and Liam had set it properly. Now it was a matter of keeping the swelling down and keeping Tsuyarra from using it, which was less of a hassle than it could have been. She was a better patient than most. "I also feel what he feels, and vice versa. He's a cat first and foremost, and as such is a predator. He's hunting the butterflies, and the thrill is hard to ignore because it's instinct for him, and he's not far off from being an ordinary animal."

She was silent for a long minute as Liam worked. When she spoke, it was in Milava.

"One apologizes, for one has little experience with _wujra_." The word was roughly comparable to the term "wizard", but described a practitioner with a more spiritual bent.

"One finds another has nothing to apologize for. Questions need asking before the answer can be sought." A child's proverb, but applicable. "One wonders if another has further questions."

Tsuyarra frowned, looking at Flare. Her words this time were in Palax. "What is it like? To share another's feelings, I mean."

"Confusing," Liam replied immediately, securing the last splints and assisting Tsuyarra in placing her arm back into its sling. "Sometimes I'm not sure which are my feelings and which are his. I get some physical sensations, too. Like if he's hungry: I get sympathy pangs even if I've just eaten." A smile passed across his lips. "He also gets some sensations from me. I love to swim. I love the sensation of water, of floating and surrendering to the flow. He hates water except when he has to drink it. I can dull the link a little bit, but it takes concentration." He glanced at Flare. "It's never completely gone, though. Till death do us part."

"Then when do you have privacy?" Tsuyarra asked in earnest. Liam frowned, unsure what she meant. Her eyes moved as though searching for the proper translation to make me understand. "We believe that we all must have times of silence, of peace and solitude. These are holy times, where we take all we have learned into ourselves."

Liam was saved from having to answer by David and Corian's arrival. The sorcerer still moved stiffly, and it took him a while to react, the poor man. That poison was potent!

"The road to Fairhill is only a mile or so down the road," Corian declared happily, if a little slowly. "And according to some personable farmhands is only a half-day's walk from the highway. Our goal is near!"

The last mile was uneventful, but peaceful. A gentle breeze stole the sun's heat away, such that Liam felt his regulatory enchantment was unnecessary, and for the first time in years he allowed himself to feel the day as it was.

The wind carried the tell-tale scent of farms – hay and manure – even as the group turned onto the road to Fairhill. It sloped gradually uphill, meandering lazily while small farms appeared to either side, similar to the one they'd been ambushed at. The farms cut into the forest on either side of the road, though only enough for their fields and little more.

Though the forest had been cut back from the road a hundred paces or so there were still hills a-plenty, and even with the encounter at the farmhouse still fresh in their minds they found themselves being lulled by the thought of not having to sleep on the ground tonight, of shelter from rain and – at least in Liam's case – a bath.

Their pace was slow to accommodate Corian, making the half-day walk a few hours longer, and so it was about two hours from sunset when a surge of alarm pulsed from Flare and staggered Liam, accompanied by the hiss of arrows streaking through the late afternoon air.

Two flew right past Corian, putting more holes into his robe while the third burrowed into Tsuyarra's thigh. The elf cried out as she grasped the shaft, falling to the ground in obvious pain.

The uninjured group members looked to the source of the arrows: three greenish-skinned humanoids with upward-thrusting tusks and porcine noses, sloped foreheads and beady eyes, some eighty feet away. They stood before the glare of the setting sun, prudently keeping the travelers from keeping an eye on them for more than a second.

Two of them laughed at the third as it dropped an arrow while fumbling to nock it. The mirthful ones drew back and loosed, apparently aiming for Tsuyarra. One went wide, nearly striking Flare as it burrowed into the ground and the other the elf slapped aside with a curt gesture of her functional hand. The marauders – whatever they were – hurriedly reached for more arrows as Liam dug into his belt pouch, and David and Corian began chanting.

Corian's spell reached completion first, and the bolt of force he called into being trailed silver sparks as it smashed into the clumsy marauder. David's spell drew the essence of his own shadow into an arrow that drank light. It struck the same humanoid, which sprawled to the ground after a moment of seemingly heroic defiance.

Alan had crouched low and moved a little closer to the attackers, his hands had become claws and he seemed to be readying himself to sprint forward like a runner. All his body language radiated pure hatred.

Finding what he'd been searching for, Liam quickly incanted his spell and flung the handful of sand at their opponents. Of the two facing them, one seemed not to feel a thing, but the other sagged in spell-induced slumber.

The remaining marauder looked between his two companions and the party, then turned tail and fled.

Apparently this was what Alan had been waiting for, for he was off like a shot. His bounding charge ate ground with one stride covering two or three of my own. Though the marauder ran for the woods, Alan's feral rush overtook him just as he sank out of sight beyond a hill. The creature managed a scream of abject terror before being abruptly cut off.

None of the humans could hear anything, but apparently Tsuyarra heard sounds that sickened her, for she turned pale as fresh-fallen snow.

"What?" Corian asked as he noticed Tsuyarra's new color. "What's happening?"

"I…I cannot say." Tsuyarra shook her head. "Please, do not ask."

Corian frowned but said nothing more. David had been making his way to the two unconscious creatures and in a move that chilled Liam, he casually lopped off their heads.

The wizard had nothing against killing animals, nor any qualms regarding euthanasia. But what David did was cold-blooded, and more than a little frightening. It was an indication of what he was capable of, a peek at the changes wrought by more than six years of "captivity" in a world not our own.

"Is there anything you can do about this arrow in my leg?" Tsuyarra asked archly, startling Liam out of his reverie. He turned to her and shifted mental gears to "surgeon" as Corian stood nearby, watching as the wizard began his work.

Eyeballing the wound through her robes was not the easiest thing in the world, so he asked her to hike them up enough to see her injury in its entirety. She went pink to the tips of her ears but did as Liam asked and revealed a slender but well-muscled leg streaked in the pale blood of elves. It flowed from the injury just four inches above her knee, and the arrowhead hadn't penetrated to the other side. Fortunately, it wasn't lodged in the bone.

Sighing, Liam snapped off the fletching and met Tsuyarra's eyes. She'd emitted a small "meep" of pain when he'd grabbed the arrow, and blanched when he broke it, but she managed to keep from striking the wizard.

Hopefully, she'd continue to demonstrate that kind of resolve.

"I have to push it through," Liam said warningly. "I need you to look away, and I will count to three." She nodded curtly and looked away.

Immediately he knew she'd seen through his paltry ruse, for her muscle was trying to tense beneath his hands. There'd be more damage than he had intended, but there was no help for it. Liam had no sedatives that would work on an elf, and no spells to knock her out.

Steeling himself, Liam said "One" and shoved on the broken shaft of the arrow. Tsuyarra squealed in pain and the wizard had a fleeting moment of pity for her, but there was no room for that. He hadn't pushed hard enough and the head hadn't pierced all the way through. It was cruelly barbed, which kept it from backtracking, but it still had to hurt like a bitch. Growling, he said "Two" and pushed it the rest of the way through. Tsuyarra fell back as he pulled the arrow the rest of the way through, and blood that had merely trickled now flowed, coating his hands swiftly.

Liam pulled out his amulet, and chanted the prayer of healing, calling on the Azure for a measure of its power yet again. The injury closed beneath my hands, and cautious probing with Tsuyarra's wan shakes of her head told Liam the healing had been complete.

If only he could do to bone as with flesh.

"That's incredible," Corian shook his head. "You went from the arcane Art to healing from the gods, as a priest would. Who taught you?"

"I taught myself." Liam shrugged, giving his hands a dirt bath. "Jacob took me on as an apprentice and taught me the Art, all that I know in fact. I took the next step and began to study the Divine as I do the Art. I believe all magic is the same, and that's how I approach it."

"Fascinating," Corian frowned. "My uncle took me into his home and tried to teach me the Art, but I've never found it necessary to categorize and analyze like he or you do. It just is, and it's in my soul. Music that needs only to be given voice to make its mark on the world." The young man's face fell as he looked back on his memories. "My uncle never understood that."

Liam eyed him for a moment before shrugging. "Not everybody has the sheer tenacity necessary to learn the Art as he or I do. For us, this is the only way we can learn it. For you, if you've never had to struggle to get even the most basic of cantrips off, then why should you learn to pick magic apart? Perhaps it's a matter of being versus knowing."

"You are decidedly more accepting than my uncle," Corian commented dryly.

"One of the benefits of being a scholar of the Art in all its permutations is that you get to read all kinds of dry, musty books." Liam answered, just as dryly. "And if you have an open mind, those books can do more than just waste time."

"What are you talking about?" David asked as he got within the limits of normal-volume conversation. He was carrying the armor and weapons of the two marauders he'd decapitated. A quick glance told Liam that Alan was doing the same with the one he'd downed, but he wasn't bringing any armor back. David's was only slightly spattered with the greenish blood of the attackers, but Alan's looked as though he'd dipped them into whole lakes of the stuff and then wrapped it in raw meat. It actually took Liam a second look before he realized what Alan was carrying.

Alan himself seemed mysteriously pristine…as much as he could be, that is. It was almost like he'd rolled around in the dirt.

He stopped as his four companions stared at him with the orc's skin draped around his shoulders like a shawl.

"What?"

They arrived in Fairhill just as the sun began to set, only to be stopped by a tall human with short, auburn hair and battle-scarred leather armor. He was accompanied by an elf female in a suit of scale mail and two half-elves wearing chain shirts and green surcoats, an insignia atop the left breast – a silver bowl – being their only decoration.

They were armed, the half-elves with spears and all four with swords of various types, but their blades were sheathed and spears at rest.

The man raised his left hand in a gesture the party took to mean "halt". They'd been some fifty paces off when the quartet came boiling out of the squat stone building, and rather than antagonize him and his well-armed group – better armed than the travellers, at least – they stopped.

"Announce yourselves and state your purpose," he called. Behind and just to his right the elf woman placed a hand on her sword whilst glaring at the party suspiciously.

After a moment Corian stepped forward. "We come from Kerist-Alshoon, and have been long on the road. We seek shelter in your fair town for the night."

The man focused on Corian with all the intensity of a hawk sighting a mouse.

"And why is he covered in blood?" It might have been the distance, but Liam got the distinct impression the guard meant him.

"It looks to be elf blood," the woman standing behind him stated in a loud voice.

"Which is mine," Tsuyarra interjected quickly, before the implications could be made any worse. "He treated me for an arrow wound received in combat against bandit orcs along the road to your Fairhill."

The man growled at the subtle implication that the roads around the village were unsafe, then stepped to the side, and raised his right arm in a sweeping gesture of sardonic welcome. All could clearly see that his arm terminated in a horrifically scarred clump of flesh a couple inches above where his wrist should have been.

"Then well met." His tone belied irritation, though it was unclear whether at life in general or at Tsuyarra's comments. "This road will bring you to the central market of Fairhill. On the left as you enter is the Drunken Cockatrice Inn. Pass straight through the market and you will find the temple of Freya. All visitors are required to pay homage. Keep out of trouble. Good day."

He led his group back into the stone building, though they left the door open and a lookout was immediately seen on the roof, indicating that it was open up above.

After an awkward moment the party started moving again, walking up the inclined road between two farms planted with wheat and on into the more populated center of Fairhill.

The majority of the houses were made of wood and had thatched roofs, and villagers wandered about on their business as though they had all the time in the world.

What the guard had termed the "central market" was also the center of the village, though most of the houses seemed to be concentrated near the road they'd just walked up. As he'd said, there was a three-storied building just on the corner that boasted a wooden sign with some sort of cross between an emaciated chicken and a lizard, the Palax words for "Drunken Cockatrice" written underneath.

The market was a sprawling morass of many long tables, all of which seemed designed to hold up large canvas awnings; presently being taken down.

Unfortunately, there was no "straight through" that could be seen, so the group skirted about the edge of the market and watched with amazement as the marketplace was packed up with efficiency borne of long years' experience.

"Truly, I had not thought humans capable of such efficiency," Tsuyarra shook her head in awed disbelief. "Had I not just witnessed it with my own eyes I would have believed it to be as fanciful as Jorlatha's Twelve Days of Night."

"I'm…certain you meant that as a compliment," David muttered even as he gazed about appreciatively. "Ah! One moment, please." He walked off into the market, manoeuvring about the tables with ease. Perhaps he was visualizing them as seats in a grand tavern.

"Where's he going?" Corian asked.

"Beats me," Liam replied. "Probably trying to pawn off some of the equipment we got off those…what were they again?"

"Orcs," Tsuyarra answered. "I am still uncertain how you don't know them on sight."

"I've been a bit sheltered," Liam replied dryly. Then – miracle of miracles – he shut his mouth before they got into another fight. Liam's tender care of her injuries had softened Tsuyarra to him a little, but when one starts with stone there's a great deal of softening to be done.

They eventually got to the other side of the market – Liam's blood-smeared appearance drawing considerably worried looks – where David caught up with them, tossing a small, clinking pouch from hand to hand, an expression of triumph on his face.

"Ha-HA!" He chortled as he drew near. "Two suits of leather armor – slightly used – three shields and a battleaxe! Ooh, if only you'd been there! My friends, we eat like kings tonight!"

Liam cocked his head to the side. "What was the haul?"

"All tolled I managed almost seventy-two shikas! Ooh, this was so much more fun than poking around a dingy cellar for two days!"

"Are you going to share the wealth, my lord?" Corian asked, somehow managing to bow sardonically. "Perhaps these lowly slaves might have use for even a pittance from one so generous."

Tsuyarra managed a straight face for nearly four seconds before she burst out laughing. The four humans turned and stared at her with shock and disbelief: elves did not do strong, prolonged emotions! When she realized the others weren't laughing she stopped, and apparently realized what she'd just been doing and went crimson to the tips of her ears.

"Oh." She covered her face with her uninjured hand. "Oh my, I'm not sure…I don't know where that came from."

"You have been dealing with four humans of questionable sanity for the past week," Alan suggested, drawing Liam's incredulous stare. Alan's expression was pure deadpan. _Is he finally comfortable enough with us to joke, or is that what he actually thinks of us?_ "May I suggest some meditation? It is possible you've lost your center."

"That is quite possible," Tsuyarra bowed to him. "I thank you for your counsel. I shall seek out a suitable location once we have paid homage to this temple." They travelled in silence for a little while longer, mounting a hill upon which several buildings sat.

It was too good to last.

The silence fractured as they approached a plain wooden building with a peaked roof, basically logs lashed together in an inverted "V". It was set apart from the others by its austerity and the priestess within. A stone altar and an idol of a stag's head sat inside, and the priestess within chanted loudly over a silver bowl filled with shoots of wheat.

"Does anyone know who this Freya is?" Corian asked, stopping outside. "I've been trying to think, but I've never really heard the name before."

"Liam?" David asked archly. "You study divine magic. Do you also study religions?"

"It's kind of a necessity," Liam replied. "I know two Freya's. One is from Home," he emphasized the word and raised his eyebrows meaningfully. David got the inference. "The other Freya is considered a minor deity. In both cases they oversee matters of love, fertility and war. Ours also relates to gold and death. This one is a warrior in all the ways that count. She fights for her land, for life, for her children. I've also read that she leads the Valkyries, though the book never explained what they were beyond 'a band of fearsome female warriors.'"

"Intriguing," the priestess murmured, standing. She turned to face the party, a beautiful, barefoot elven woman wearing a cape of white fur and a simple leather tunic that reached only to her knees. "Your words mark you as an Outlander. You are the third such to visit my humble shrine in as many days." David and Liam glanced quickly at each other, their hearts pounding. It was rare to meet other Outlanders, especially this far south. He'd heard that most had settled on the other side of Menaevek – the elves' country – in Nagret, homeland to humans. Aside from David and Liam there'd only been one other Outlander in Kerist-Alshoon, but the cecaelia got him during the prior year's mating season.

"We apologize for interrupting your devotions," Tsuyarra bowed deeply. "We were told by the man of a single hand that all visitors are required to pay homage to your shrine, and so we have presented ourselves."

The priestess smiled patiently, elevating her beauty to the otherworldly. Even Liam was affected, and he could only imagine what a sight he was.

"With one hand, you say? That would be Baran. You'll have to excuse him. He takes his job very seriously, and has for the past ten years. That man has such dedication. If only he'd been born to the m'vara." She sighed the last word, the name the elves called themselves in their own tongue. After a moment the shadow that crossed her face passed, then she looked at the party with welcome in her eyes. "I am Shandril, priestess of Freya, who you already know." She smiled at Liam with the corners of her eyes, as elves did normally, and he found himself interested at the difference between her and Tsuyarra. "Welcome to my shrine-oh!" She looked at Tsuyarra again. Shandril switched to Milava. "You are injured. Do you require assistance?"

Tsuyarra bowed again, answering in kind. "That would be appreciated. He has said that he does not have the power to seal the bones."

"Mending of the flesh is far simpler than mending of the bones," Shandril shook her head. She looked at the others. In Palax she said, "Come, all of you. I'm certain your day has been long." Her eyes focused on Liam's bloody clothing. "And longer still in some cases. You may be glad of the chance to sit." To Tsuyarra she murmured quietly in Milava. "One cannot spend much time from one's devotions to Freya, but will render such aid as one can. One wonders if another is in any danger from the bloody one."

"One is thankful for another's concern," Tsuyarra replied, just as quietly. How thankful Liam was for the silent area, so free of the hustle and bustle of a crowd at noon that he could eavesdrop on a conversation whereupon it was immediately assumed that he was a psychopath. "Another need not be concerned, for another-that-is-bloody has been helpful, and is who set one's arm and drew an arrow from one's leg. That one is an ally."

Shandril relaxed almost immediately at Tsuyarra's words, and flashed Liam a broad smile as though deciding that he wasn't a threat. Liam responded with what he hoped was an uncertain grin, trying to pretend that he hadn't just heard Shandril as much as say he was a danger.

"If you will permit, I shall cast a spell that will aid me in cleansing myself of this." Liam gestured at the blood. "I'm starting to feel as though people fear me."

"Certainly not," Shandril waved a hand dismissively. "Though your appearance is somewhat discomfiting. Proceed as you will. I thank you for the forewarning."

Liam gave a little bow from where he sat and incanted the spell as Shandril inspected his bandaged handiwork. For the next hour Liam would be able to perform a variety of little magical tricks that ultimately didn't amount to much of anything. Jacob had said it was the same spell taught to apprentices to teach about concentration and focus, as each little trick required a different application of will.

Fortunately, one of those little tricks was a cleaning effect which tended to be the most often-used by novices upon the making of a mess their master might not wish to see. It wasn't terribly fast, and required more concentration than simply lifting something, but by all the gods was it ever effective: after only a single pass the cleaned area of fabric belied not even a stain to show there'd been blood there. Part of his focus split to keep the blood in the air and his progress slowed a bit because of it, but at least Liam had something to concentrate on instead of eavesdropping.

About the time he finished and was casting about for somewhere to deposit the collected bloodstains, Shandril began chanting a prayer in a language Liam didn't get to hear very often: Celestial, the language of the heavens. He listened with half-closed eyes to the beauty of her words, the cadence and pronunciation of the tongue angels communed in.

So lost was he that he nearly missed that she was asking Freya to bring Tsuyarra's bones together, to mend what had been broken, to return what was lost. Silver light flashed beneath her hands as Freya answered Shandril's prayer. Tsuyarra gasped as the magic did its work, swiftly mending the injuries.

"How is the pain?" Shandril asked, gently feeling for the results of her prayer.

Tsuyarra winced at one point, but answered "It is well. Tender, but well."

"The tenderness is the flesh speaking. It shall fade." She took the others in with a sweeping gaze. "I thank you for coming. This temple welcomes all who come without evil in their hearts. I am sorry to be abrupt, but I must continue my devotions. There is much to be accomplished before the harvest ceremony."

"Ceremony?" Liam asked, interest perking up. One of the things he enjoyed was witnessing the ceremonies and rituals of the various faiths. It was rather bizarre, as he'd never really liked spending time doing the same back home. Perhaps it was that there tended to be actual holy visitations and manifestations of divinity.

"Yes, it's the ceremony during which I call upon Freya to bless the new harvest, which helps Fairhill to maintain its prosperity."

"Amazing. Is it public?"

"You've an interest in such matters, yes?" Liam's earnest nod caused her eyes to crinkle at the corners in an elven laugh. "Then return on the morrow. Freya requires no services through the afternoon, and we can discuss the subject to your heart's content." She looked Liam over. "I see no holy signs, and so cannot offer an appropriate farewell to a fellow priest."

"There's no need for grand gestures," Liam shrugged. "As such: farewell Shandril, priestess of Freya. I hope we shall meet again tomorrow."

"Farewell, Outlander. May your fields be bountiful." They bowed to one another, and Liam began to leave, lost in many thoughts.

David actually brought Liam back to reality when he asked about the two Outlanders Shandril had mentioned earlier. The wizard stumbled at his friend's words and half-turned to listen to the priestess' answer.

"I'm afraid I don't know much. They are two human women, one of blonde hair and one of black. The dark one identified herself as 'Sif' while her companion said not a word, and she had great interest in learning about Freya." The name of the brunet had pinged something in Liam's memory, but he couldn't quite put his finger on it. "I believe they may still be in town, but I haven't heard where."

"Thank you for your time," David bowed to her. "Blessings and farewell."

Corian and Alan said their own "goodbyes" and Tsuyarra thanked Shandril profusely for the healing, at which point the group left to seek an inn for the night.

Rather than stumble about like country bumpkins – no offense to the inhabitants of this town, a true wonder of civilization – the group went to the Drunken Cockatrice.

Upon arriving Liam gave the sign only a moment's glance before the bubbling of laughter in his chest forced him to look away lest he begin giggling like a fool. The image was just too ridiculous, and he didn't want to risk offending someone.

Inside, the place was absolutely spotless, and even as they crowded in to allow their eyes to adjust to the somewhat dimmer atmosphere a barmaid descended on a recently vacated table and wiped it down with the efficiency of practice. The bar had no dirty mugs – unattended, at least: one man clung to the bar and drank with all the dedication of a professional drunk – the fireplace had a cheerful fire and delicious smells wafted through the air, causing stomachs consigned almost totally to trail rations for the past week to resolutely refuse anything other than the best food money could buy.

"Blessings of Freya upon you, travellers," a woman spoke as she approached. She wore a long-sleeved, high-necked dress the color of the sky. It went well with her neatly styled dark hair, which accentuated ears with slight points. Her build was heavier than a normal elven woman, hinting that this woman was a half-elf. "I am Glarian Of-Hearth's-Fire, proprietress of this inn. How may I serve you this evening?"

"We're looking to stay in town for a few days," David said. "And we could use a good meal. The last week has been a bit rough."

"One can imagine," Glarian replied, crinkling her eyes in laughter. "I've enough rooms for each of you, though I must warn that I charge two shikas for a day and night. Meals are two cravi-" a silver, star-shaped coin valued at a tenth of a shika "-but I assure you there are none in Fairhill whose cooking can compare."

"Are the rooms in as excellent condition as your taproom?" David asked, gesturing to indicate the dining area. Liam filed the term away for future reference.

_Still so much I don't know, _he thought, resting a hand on his workbook. He closed his eyes and silently offered a prayer to the Azure, asking for time to learn.

Glarian had nodded at David's compliment. "Of course. I'm sure you will find them most satisfactory."

"Then we'd like five rooms, please. Two days each, if you will." He counted out twenty shikas' worth of gold and silver from the pouch within which he kept his loot-based gains, then added another couple shikas. "And this is for dinner tonight and breakfast tomorrow."

"Excellent. If you'll come this way I'll get you registered."

Within minutes the party sat at a table not far from the stone fireplace, basking in its warmth as they tucked into a hearty ground beef stew. A sliced loaf of bread baked fresh that morning sat between them, pots of butter and strawberry preserves next to it.

A quick survey around the table told a bit about their various backgrounds simply in the way each handled their cutlery. Tsuyarra held her spoon pinched between the tips of the four fingers and thumb of her right hand, an awkward-looking position that she handled with ease, and the disdain she held for the way David and Liam pinched theirs between curled index finger and thumb indicated that it was somehow considered more civilized. Alan held his spoon like a sword – with a fist – and used it to push food from the bowl into his mouth, while Corian – who sat next to him – choked with embarrassment and tried repeatedly to get the dirty teenager to wield his cutlery like the sorcerer himself was: the handle held between and parallel to his thumb, index and middle fingers.

Liam suppressed a chuckle and fed Flare another chunk of beef, sharing and returning his feelings of pleasure and contentment as the wizard bit into butter-soaked bread.

At this moment, the past eight days felt worth it. Jacob's ultimatum seemed distant and far away, the horror on the farm a passing memory. Right now there was only warmth and peace, and the knowledge that tonight would be spent indoors.

"I'm worried about you, Fendrin," Glarian said softly from behind the bar. The group turned and looked to see her speaking with the drunk human. She was taking away empty mugs. "It's been six months already. Do you really think she'd be happy to see you like this?"

"What does it matter?" Fendrin slurred, his voice sorrowful. "It's mah fault: I kilt her, 'n nothin's gonna change that. Oh, Deirdre. Kylin! Mah boy…" He broke down into tears, words dissolving to incoherent sobbing as he covered his head with his hands.

Glarian shook her head sadly and finished clearing the mugs away, returning to her duties. Soon Fendrin passed out, his sobs becoming snores. The half-elf tsked and pulled a thin blanket out from behind the bar. She noticed the travelers watching and looked ashamed that they'd witnessed the exchange.

"Another!" Alan called, raising his bowl. He caught Liam's sharp look and evidently mistook its meaning, belatedly adding a meek "Please?"

The barmaid that'd been cleaning earlier came and took his empty bowl – along with Tsuyarra's and David's – into the back while Glarian came forth with another. She set it down in front of the teenager and watched with mild amusement as he dug in, heedless of anything around him.

"He's very thankful," Corian said, embarrassed for Alan's lack of social grace. He kicked Alan under the table. "Aren't you?"

The teenager looked at the sorcerer, startled, but nodded emphatically at Glarian. He looked like he was about to say something without swallowing, but Corian swiftly clapped a hand over his mouth and shuddered, turning green. Stew dripped down from between his hand and Alan's chin.

"I'll get you some more napkins," Glarian smiled, eyes still full of pity for Fendrin, yet lit from within for the two humans' antics.

"That's appreciated," Corian murmured dryly as the proprietress walked off. He flicked some of the stew that yet clung to his hand back into Alan's bowl and stared at it mournfully. Steeling himself, he glared at Alan. "Where'd you learn your manners? A barn?"

Alan shrugged, swallowing and taking a swig of water. He'd staunchly refused any other beverage. "Kereks don't make good parents." After a moment he froze, eyes wide as he realized what he'd just said. For nearly a minute they watched as he fought with himself, and when he started moving again it was only to ignore them and swiftly finish his food, down his water, and rush upstairs to his room.

"What was that about?" Liam asked. Corian avoided my questioning look, shame in all his body language, but Tsuyarra seemed to feel no such compunction.

"Kereks practice slavery," she answered, and Liam felt a chill run down his spine, instinctive revulsion twisting his lips. Tsuyarra watched him with unmasked interest.

Liam swallowed, choking down his reaction with will tempered to handle the energy of the cosmos. "Why is that important? So do the m'vara."

Tsuyarra's cold smile turned his blood to ice, and the hearth's fire seemed to recede at the elf's precisely controlled fury. "The m'vara still perceive their _slaves_ as possessing personality, and know that any mistreatment of their property reflects poorly on themselves. Kereks have no such perception. A mistreated slave symbolizes a good _master_ to their kind. The harsher, the better." She turned her gaze on the route Alan had taken. "It is remarkable that he survived to this age so…" she paused, searching for the word. Her luminous, hazel eyes locked on Liam's and held him as surely as a spell, releasing their hold only when they flicked down meaningfully and she whispered "-intact."

The two stared at one another for several long moments before she turned to look at her meal.

"I believe I am no longer hungry. Good evening, David, Corian." She looked at Liam again. Her voice became flat. "Faren." With that she left, leaving her meal mostly untouched.

"Okay. What just happened?" Liam looked at David and Corian helplessly, making to push his bowl away. Flare protested: even if Liam didn't have an appetite, who was he to deprive his familiar? Liam instead placed it upon the floor, where the cat started chowing down. "What don't I know here?"

Corian hung his head, refusing to answer, and David gave the sorcerer a disgusted look before speaking in English.

"Orcs and elves hate each other," he said. "It's been that way for millennia, and is bound up in their creation myths." Pausing for a mouthful of stew and a mouthful of ale, he continued. "A couple thousand years ago, elves and orcs lived together in relative peace, more or less the same people with only a few differences in their respective cultures. Suffice it to say those differences weren't enough to cause much in the way of conflict save in one major area: slavery. Both races believed themselves to be superior to all others. The humans, halflings, gnomes and dwarves had differing opinions on the matter, but they hadn't yet formed fronts strong enough to hold against either orc or elf." Another pause. "Really, that's neither here nor there. Orcs treated their slaves badly, and encouraged their slaves to mistreat others. One of their pleasures and sports then and now is to watch slaves fight. They raised and treated them as one might a dog, though perhaps not quite the same based on the existence of half-orcs. On the other hand, elves treat slaves as servants. Favored slaves possess some minor freedoms, but ultimately they have no rights. An elf could choose to execute their slaves on nothing more than a whim if they so wanted, though that is more of a last-ditch effort, and usually done when a slave is damaged beyond their means to repair."

"So they divided over how they treat slaves?" Liam frowned. "That seems so…irrational."

David snorted. "This from the man who just saw what comparing elf custom to orc accomplished. The first divisions came from the slave thing. The next came when orcs had their slaves attack and kill elven slaves. This escalated over about twenty years, finally culminating in all-out war that lasted almost a century. Both sides nearly wiped the other out. Throughout this war the humans, dwarves and gnomes banded together and rescued their brethren. They stole most of the slaves belonging to either side, and banded together into the country known as Nagret. They took the best parts of orc and elf society and made them their own. When they had enough manpower – since we breed like rabbits compared to elves – they put up arms and stopped both sides."

"Just like that? No sneak attacks, no grand speeches, just 'stop'?"

Liam's friend shook his head. "Not quite, but close. As I recall, the gist of the ultimatum delivered to both sides was 'stop fighting, or we'll wipe out your people.' Elves have their mages and traditions, orcs have their engineers – at least up north they do – but the humans have the numbers. Even if all the orcs and elves banded together, they're still outnumbered about twenty-to-one, and that's just counting the humans." Liam blanched. "Exactly. Humans act as peace brokers who wield diplomacy in one hand and genocide in the other. For the elves, it's only been a couple generations, so it's still kind of a sore point."

"Kind of like calling a German a Nazi, then?" David considered for less than a second before nodding.

"That's pretty much it."

At that point Glarian cleared her throat, drawing their attention. She avoided looking at David or Liam, and handed a cotton napkin to Corian.

"Thank you," Corian took it and cleaned his stew-coated hand. He shifted, uncomfortable with David and Liam speaking in a language he couldn't understand, then turned to Glarian, apparently desperate for something to draw attention away the two crazy Outlanders. "What's wrong with him?" He pointed at Fendrin, and Liam wanted to slap him. They'd already had enough drama this evening.

The innkeeper glanced at the drunk, her eyes going sad again. Still ignoring the Outlanders, she said "His wife and son were killed by a manticore a few months ago. He blames himself, says it's his fault they died. Poor dear…he's in every night. On top of all the raids…" She trailed off, expression sorrowful.

"Have you tried cutting him off?" Liam asked. Annoyance and distrust flickered in her eyes as she looked at him. _Four years and I've forgotten that some people don't like us. Sigh._

"If I did that, sir, then he'd simply go to the Cask and Flagon, or worse: the Tavern of Three Kegs. At least here he is taken care of. Now if you'll excuse me, I have work to do." She left for the kitchen, and Liam didn't see her for the rest of the night.

Of course, that might have been because he retreated to and hid in his room before he could say or do anything else offensive.

The candle lit with a moment's focus – another benefit of the still-active miscellanea magicka cantrip – and Liam sat down to do a little research. His workbook held the copies of every spell Jacob had taught him – which amounted to all but one of the arcane spells – and gave him functional examples of the basics. Together with what he knew, Liam could build on that knowledge to create new spells.

It wasn't something he expected to accomplish in a single night, but he wanted to get a start on it. At least it would give him something to do which would keep his mind off his painfully apparent social ineptitude.

_Now, let's see if we can pick apart that missile spell Corian used._

Morning found him asleep at his desk, ink stains on his face from where he'd used his workbook as a pillow. The candle he'd lit had burned itself out and wax had spilled over the iron candleholder and onto the desk.

After a yawn and a stretch, Liam looked down at the damage to his work and breathed a sigh of relief at finding it minimal. His scrawl was mostly legible and had dried much earlier. Flipping through the remaining pages, Liam considered buying a workbook solely for foundational work, then wondered if there'd be anyone in town from whom he could actually purchase a wizard's spellbook.

_Could there be someone with spells available?_

Regarding his smudged work Liam made the decision to buy another if he could find one. His window overlooked the market, and a glance outside showed the vendors were just setting up for the day. From the angle of the shadows from the early morning sun, he figured on a couple hours until noon. The air was cool and dry, suggesting it wouldn't get as hot as usual.

Liam sat back down at the desk and flipped through until he'd marked the spells to memorize today. It was time for a change in tactics.

A couple hours later Liam waltzed out of his room and downstairs to the taproom, where he broke his fast with a hearty lunch – which Glarian generously didn't charge him for, since he missed breakfast – and then off to the bathing chambers. The cold water guaranteed a swift bath, and after a quick towel-off Liam departed into the wilds of the marketplace.

Flare declined to join the grand adventure, choosing instead to remain asleep on Liam's unused pillow.

Fairhill boasted all manner of craftsmen, resulting in a dazzling array of goods for a village its size.

Clothiers and smiths of all sorts displayed wares all across the spectrum. From garments to tools to common alchemical concoctions and more, it might well have been an experienced adventurer's wet dream.

As it was, Liam found himself lost amidst the variety. Without a place to start, he simply wandered, browsing each table's specialty. Here and there he found wonderful little oddities (matryoshka dolls with elven, dwarf and human features, stone and wood carvings of fantastic creatures), curios (pet collars with cute names written in Draconic, ten-foot poles, and one vendor with row after row of carved wooden holy symbols for pretty much every god and goddess Liam could identify and some he couldn't) and trinkets (musical instruments, cast iron cookware and writing implements). The holy symbols in particular fascinated Liam, as the fact that someone was mass-producing and selling them seemed somehow blasphemous.

Liam ended up passing most of these by without purchasing anything – though he was sorely tempted to get Flare a collar with the name "Mr. Bubbles" printed on it – and stopped at a table manned by an aging dwarf in a brown robe, perhaps the third or fourth he'd ever seen. Kerist-Alshoon wasn't a very popular destination for dwarves. Something about ships and cave-dwellers just didn't mix.

"And what can I do for ye, Human?" the dwarf asked as Liam paused before him.

"I'm looking for another workbook," Liam replied, then as the dwarf frowned in puzzlement he tried the formal name. "An arcanabula." The dwarf nodded in understanding.

"Already filled up one then?" He looked Liam up and down. "You don't look like an apprentice. Who's yer master?"

Liam frowned, not really expecting this. "Jacob Sevek, of Kerist-Alshoon." The dwarf seemed to pale.

"I'd, ah…heard that Master Sevek had secured himself an apprentice. How is he, anyway?"

"I'd imagine the usual," Liam grimaced. "He hasn't changed in six years. I can't imagine him starting now."

The dwarf grinned, though his skin was still a chalky color. "That sounds like the old buzzard, alright." He gulped, as if suddenly realizing what he'd said. Looking around frantically, he added "He's not here in town, is he?"

Liam pursed his lips briefly. "…No."

"Ah, wonderful!" The dwarf mopped his suddenly sweaty forehead, expression indicating relief of the utmost sort. "Might I interest ye in some scrolls of arcane lore?"

"That's kind of you, but I'm afraid I'm a little tight on coin. If the cost is the same as Caradas offered I'm alright for the arcanabula or…" Liam trailed off as Caradas' name caused the dwarf to go positively green.

"Yer…yer on a first name basis with Master Caradas as well, are ye?" He started sweating despite the relatively cool breeze.

"In a manner of speaking. We trade goods occasionally." With every word the dwarf seemed to wilt more and more. "What was your name? Perhaps they've mentioned you in passing."

"Oh, I'm just nobody." The dwarf laughed nervously, looking around anywhere but Liam. "Nobody important. Masters Sevek and Caradas used to adventure long ago, when that crotchety gnome were young. He's not here either, is he?" Liam shook his head. "Oh, thanks be to the Mother!"

"Maybe we should just avoid the conversation and stick strictly to the transaction I'm interested in?" The wizard suggested. "You're looking decidedly unwell, and speaking about either Jacob or Caradas seems to exacerbate that."

"That's mighty kind of ye, lad. Let's do just that! Just business. Yes! Er…what were ye lookin' fer again?"

"An arcanabula." Liam thought for a moment. "That's all, I guess. I'll need some implements for the creation of scrolls, but that can wait."

"Arcanabula. Right. I've several here. How many pages d'ye reckon on needin'?"

Liam looked over what he had. Six books, all bound in leather. Two each in hunter green, royal blue and rose red covers, and a brief glance suggested one of each color in the standard hundred pages and one in the irregular two hundred. The dwarf said nothing as Liam counted them up and verified the glance as true. Gnawing on a thumb, he asked the price.

"Tha price don't vary none by color, and I sell at a very reasonable eighteen shikas for tha standard arcanabula. These 'uns," he tapped the irregulars. "I can part with fer, oh…29 shikas."

"That's significantly above what Caradas offers," Liam kept his tone casual and distant as he thumbed through the green irregular, as though thinking aloud. The dwarf gulped audibly, and Liam felt conflicted. _Should I just pay what he's selling them for? Or should I play on his too-obvious fear of Caradas?_ Liam froze a moment, repeating the thought. _"Too obvious"? Shards of the Azure, that is a bit too obvious._

The wizard glanced at the dwarf and did his best to pin him there with a silent, questioning look. He licked dry lips and averted his gaze.

_No, that's real fear. Am I willing to use that?_ Liam tapped a finger against the green irregular's cover. _Dammit, it's only four shikas above Caradas' price. But I don't have a whole lot of cash…wait!_

"Could I interest you in more of trade, perhaps?" The wizard tried to keep the hopefulness out of his voice. "I've training from a priestess of Echeriel in matters of herb lore." The dwarf's interest began waning at the god/dess' name, so Liam switched tactics. "I've also some scrolls, copies of spells I consider extraneous." A bit of interest, but nothing definite. "A pity. Guess I'll have to buy one when I return to Caradas." Liam let an expression of irritation rise and pass. "Maybe I'll mention that I couldn't get the nicer one out in Fairhill." A stricken look seized the dwarf's eyes. "I'm sure he'll ask who it was. Maybe I'll mention who." Liam leaned a bit closer and smiled conspiratorially. "When I find out, that is. Big village, lots of people that I'm sure would love to boast about their own."

The dwarf went completely white, staring at something beyond Liam. The wizard turned and found himself staring at the translucent image of his master's sending, who was in turn watching him with eyebrows raised in amusement.

"Liam, quit tormenting the locals. Do not make me come out there. To think I see this when I choose to scry you. Tread carefully." Liam gave his master the hairy eyeball for a few moments. His sending couldn't relay any more words, but wouldn't disappear until Liam responded in kind.

"I think you write out whatever you're going to send before you even cast the spell, and just read from a script." Liam counted out the words as he said them, causing his tone to sound somewhat flat. "I'll try caution." He turned back to the dwarf as the image vanished. "Did you hear anything from that sending?" He shook his head, still white. "He threatened to come out here if I didn't behave. Should I continue to do so?"

When Liam mounted the hill to the region of temples he did so in possession of a lovely hunter green workbook in hand, perfectly blank and possessing two hundred pages. He caressed its spine gleefully. In the end the dwarf – whose name Liam hadn't learned – had let the book go for twenty-four shikas and six cravi. It wasn't much of a bargain, but regardless it made him happy. Paying almost twenty percent more was just not realistic.

There was a bit of guilt, but it was balanced out by the short bastard's attempt at overcharging.

As Liam approached his destination he saw the priestess standing just outside with a very large, deeply tanned human man, tall and broad and topping Liam by at least a head, and dwarfed the elven woman. _Dwarfing…pah! Gnomed? Halflinged?_

"Greetings to you on this fair day," Shandril spread her arms in welcome as Liam neared the Temple of Freya. "I've been waiting for you. Did you have a good night?"

"I slept rather well, thank you," Liam smiled and bowed in response. "Unfortunately, I never made it to the bed. My workbook makes a surprisingly good pillow." A thought occurred. "Did I manage to get all the ink off my face? I was writing when I fell asleep."

"You've still a few marks here and there." She gestured at the large man. "But I forget my manners. This is Kath. He is a priest of Grakosh, the Cheerful Black Eye. Kath, this is…" Shandril looked at Liam in surprise. "Goodness, I never asked your name. I'm terribly sorry."

"I am also at fault, so no one is to blame." Liam spread his hands. "My name is Liam Faren." He glanced at the big man quickly, Glarian's response last night coming to mind. "I am as you identified me last night, though of the past six years I've lived near Kerist-Alshoon."

"And who is your god?" Kath asked, his deep, booming voice startling the wizard. Liam could feel Flare's distant irritation with the sudden surge of shock his master had emitted. Although he attempted to send reassurance back to the cat, he doubted his success as Liam wasn't feeling very reassured. Kath was very large.

Beneath an open grey robe Kath wore scale mail armor, and on his chest was the symbol of his faith: a disc of wood painted with a bruised blue eye crinkled as though its bearer were laughing. It was the sign of the Jovial Wrestler: Grakosh. He was also wearing very sharp-looking, very threatening spiked gauntlets of steel.

Liam glanced at his gauntlets before seizing hold of himself and answering.

"I…'worship' isn't exactly correct, but I try to follow the Trine and the Horned God," I replied. "Their names are Hecate and Cernunnos, the Moon and Sun, Three-Faced and Hunter."

"Excellent!" Kath boomed, suddenly grinning broadly. He grabbed Liam in a crushing hug. "It's great to meet you!" The wizard stiffened as a spike from his gauntlets cut a long, shallow line in his back. "I can't say I've heard of your gods." He let go and the wizard stumbled back, hissing between clenched teeth. "Shandril here knows I don't know a whole lot about the different religions. Ha! I'd be hard-pressed to find two facts about Grakosh to rub together!"

"Kath, please," Shandril smiled at him, shooting a cautionary glance Liam's way as he fumbled to pull out his necklace. She shook her head and motioned him to put it away. "You know more than you think. Liam, may I?"

"If you like," Liam tried to keep a friendly smile on his face, but the fabric of his shirt kept rubbing the scratch. She laid a hand on Liam's back and called on Freya to heal him, her words calling for the healing, a minor spell about the same complexity as a cantrip, also known as an orison. It was just a scratch, and so her prayer took care of it completely, though the shirt still needed repairs. "Thank you. That is appreciated."

"This, for certain, is my fault." She gave an embarrassed grin, and Liam began to wonder if elves were more emotional when they weren't around other elves. "I should have warned you about Kath. I also should have asked before I invited another." She smiled. "I suppose I got caught up in the idea of peaceful conversation between three faiths. Come, let's sit." Shandril led the humans to a stone bench between her temple and a small wayfarer's shrine to Myrja of travellers and merchants.

They watched as several villagers came by to greet Shandril and praise Freya. A richly dressed woman came to kneel at Myrja's shrine, escorted by what looked like her husband.

After a few moments of silence, Shandril broached what Liam was certain she was going to ask.

"I'm afraid I know nothing of your gods. Is it permissible to speak of them?"

"I've no issue with that," Liam shrugged. "And if there's a stricture indicating it's prohibited, then it's never come up. The Hunter wears the skull of a stag on his head, who relishes in the hunt. He rules over forests and those who would make their living off the land." Liam frowned, trying to recall other details. "The Trine – Hecate – is the Three-Face. She is the Maiden, the Mother and the Crone, and governs crossroads, magic, secrets and wisdom."

Shandril cocked her head to the side and gave Liam a studying gaze. "She sounds similar to the Hag worshipped by the monstrous beings who dwell in the deepest forests."

"I'm afraid I've never heard of her."

Kath's face darkened as he answered. "She is a hateful creature, hiding herself in shadows and seeking to corrupt all. She offers knowledge but it is tainted and comes at great cost. She offers power but is fickle and will steal it back for no other reason than that she can. She is vile, spiteful and evil."

Liam looked at him with more than a little doubt. "In what way is the Hag like the Trine?"

"The Hag wars with the human god of art and knowledge: Kiné. She seeks to take ownership of all knowledge." Shandril's words were careful, and her expression had smoothed to a neutral state as she watched Liam, the open friendliness from earlier fading. "The Hag has three sides: the Temptress, the Iron Hand, and the Wizened Lady. She governs choice and secrets, war and power at the end of a sword or whip."

"She sounds like all the foul aspects of the Trine magnified and the good cut out." Liam leaned back, thinking. "Is there a god of hunting and trapping to excess? A poacher, of some kind?"

Kath nodded vigorously. "He's actually called the Poacher. Grakosh fights him when he can, but the Poacher is adept at stealth."

"It is my belief that all gods have good and evil aspects." Liam regarded the big man. "Grakosh is the Cheerful Black Eye, but somewhere I'm sure there is another god or goddess of wrestling and athleticism that doesn't care who he or she crushes to be the best, who even delights in destroying those weaker than himself." Liam's eyes met Shandril's. "And there's probably one who leads a mob to destroy, rather than create." Liam spread his hands. "The Hunter lives in harmony with the land, taking what he needs only. The Trine is the Maiden who is the rover, the Mother who is the fierce protector, and the Crone who is the guide."

"An interesting perspective," Shandril murmured. "It happens that there is a warrior god that leads a horde of lunatics and hell-spawn and spreads discord and ruin. How odd…it hadn't occurred before to draw a parallel between the two."

"I'm not saying that they're the same. I mean that perhaps the universe needs a balance between the two concepts, and Freya and that warrior god embody two sides of the same coin."

Kath frowned uncertainly. "But why would the universe need such a balance when it's inherently good?"

Liam gave him an apologetic smile. "I don't believe the universe is either good or evil. It just is. It has no drive, no intelligence. It only has purpose. As such it is incapable of deeds good or bad. Only those with minds, those that can say 'I am' and distinguish themselves as an entity separate from the world – or as a self-aware intelligent part of the whole – are capable of such acts. Freya isn't good because she has to be: she's good because she chooses to be. Similarly the Hag is evil because she chooses." Liam's smile grew apologetic as he saw Kath struggling to understand. Perhaps his genes had taken material from elsewhere to provide for his size. "Life is all about choices, and only things that are self-aware can make choices."

"I note that you do not make reference to how your gods are aligned," Shandril murmured. Liam shrugged.

"As far as I can tell they are balanced, and are neither for nor against. They simply exist, because that is how they choose."

"How can you not know how your gods are aligned?" Kath asked. "Do you not commune with them?"

Liam's cheeks and neck heated as he sought to explain. "I do and I don't. Their tenets are the ones I seek to follow: growth and self-sufficiency."

"Then what of the healing you provided Tsuyarra?" The priestess was curious, though still a little suspicious. "She and that young human male have both attested to the fact you're capable of magical healing."

"I approach magic more academically," Liam replied. "Just as I believe all gods have their counterparts, I believe the magic a mage uses is the same as a priest's. To this end I study magic both of arcane and divine natures, and seek to unravel its secrets." A small, sad smile briefly raised his lips. "Perhaps I can even discover a way home."

"Where do you hail from, then?" Kath startled Liam out of the mope he'd started to descend into.

"He's from Outland," Shandril answered the big man's question and for a long, uncharitable moment Liam wanted to slap her.

"It's not something I like everyone to know," Liam told Kath, facing him completely to keep Shandril out of sight and out of mind for the few seconds necessary to master his temper. "There is a great deal of distrust and hate directed at us, and last night I was reminded of that."

After a moment, the priestess spoke quietly. "I apologize for my insensitivity. I am aware of the distrust, and have felt it within myself. As such I should have realized that it is not my place to speak of your origins unless you broach the subject."

Liam sighed, anger draining away swiftly.

"Don't worry about it. Nobody can remember everything all the time. It would be unfair of me to hold others to a standard I can't meet."

Kath shook his head. "I still don't understand. Who do you pray to for divine miracles? And why is being an Outlander a bad thing?"

"There's nothing wrong with being an Outlander!" Liam replied, perhaps with a bit more venom and spittle than necessary. "We're strangers and therefore unknown, and the general populace from both this world and mine fear and eventually hate the unknown." The wizard grimaced and choked back his renewed anger, though Kath didn't seem to notice. Shandril – on the other hand – had tensed as Liam's voice rose, tension he could somehow feel though she sat several feet away. "As to your other query, I study the workings of spells both arcane and divine. The inner workings of divine miracles have many similarities, but the verbal component is oft-times a prayer to one's god. I refuse to beg from either the Sun or the Moon, so I draw from the Azure: the Place Between."

This had the effect of stumping both of them, and Liam allowed himself a moment of satisfaction.

"It's a joke of sorts. Imagine early morning or late afternoon as the sun is rising or setting, but the moon can still be seen in the sky. The blue sky."

Shandril got it almost immediately, though Liam could tell she didn't find it all that funny. On the other hand, Kath needed the explanation that "azure" was a shade of "blue", which defeated the purpose of the joke.

"So you follow the Horned and the Trine, yet pray to the sky for miracles out of pride?" The priestess was trying hard to understand, but it'd taken Liam a while to grasp the details of his own faith. He couldn't expect her to comprehend within moments.

"Perhaps I'm explaining the wrong way." Liam reviewed the conversation up to this point, and sighed again. "I'm definitely not saying it the 'right' way. Bluntly, I worship the Divine. It is the Source of All, from which all comes and to which all returns. It is a massive gem, ever and eternally changing the size, number, and shape of its facets. Every god – every person – down to the last insect and blade of grass and beyond is represented by its own facet. Everything is ultimately the same because it comes from the same place. Of these facets I follow the tenets of the Horned and the Trine, and pray to the Azure Sky in which the Divine floats, forever turning and eternally changing."

Shandril relaxed as Liam described more properly his faith and the hierarchy it followed.

The big priest, however, only shook his head in confusion. "I'm sorry, but I just don't get it." Shandril reached over and patted his arm.

"Nobody can grasp every concept," she assured him. "What is important is that we try. I am certain that Grakosh would look favourably upon this as an exercise in grappling with an idea." Kath brightened at Shandril's words.

"That's right! Not everybody is cut out to wrestle with people! Grakosh smiles on any who seek to best an opponent, be they flesh or thought!"

Liam grinned at his words, his joviality catching. At that point their conversation drifted from such matters of great import as the belief structure that empowered Liam to local matters, whereupon he learned that Fairhill had been suffering greatly these past few months.

Banditry was on the rise and several caravans had been slaughtered and left to rot in the sun. Some of Baran's guards had gone with one of the caravans, only to be found in pieces from the brutal savagery of the marauders.

"That's horrible!" Liam frowned. "It's hard to imagine why anybody would want to turn to banditry. There's plenty to go around if one can put in the work."

"And therein lay at least part of the problem," Shandril replied. "Not everyone is willing to put in the work. Others serve evil overlords and gods and do vile deeds in those names. And still others…" She shuddered. "They do evil for its own sake."

"That's true evil," Kath rumbled. "Like that _kikra_."

Liam started at the unfamiliar word. "I'm sorry, I don't know that term. Could you define it?"

"A _kikra_ is a blood-sucking fiend that used to live." Shandril explained. "It cannot abide the purifying touch of the sun and must hide away during the day."

"Ah, now I know what it is," Liam replied, mentally associating "_kikra"_ with "vampire". "What about the vampire?"

Kath frowned. "It dwells in that old ruined keep. Tis the only explanation for the shadow villagers have seen stalking its walls."

"Interesting," Liam ran his fingers across the soft leather cover of his new workbook. "My companions and I came to Fairhill to seek out an old keep once held by…" He frowned, trying to remember the name. "Truvian Flanis? No, it was Tanis. Fruvian? Fluvian? Ah, that was it! Fluvian Tanis."

"I knew him when he first came to Fairhill," Shandril nodded, eyes unfocused as she turned her attention into the past. "That was about thirty-two years ago. He built his keep in a day and a night, summoning beings of earth and air, fire and water, and binding them to the task. Many villagers were frightened of him, and were for years afterward. But he never bothered Fairhill, and so the villagers were convinced to leave him be." She smiled, as though at a joke. "It was amusing that the villagers were so terrified of him, when he was frightened of everything, even his own shadow…" The priestess shook herself. "Then one day, about twenty years back, he stopped coming into town. His visits were almost daily at this point, but he was known to take long trips now and again. It wasn't until we saw his keep starting to crumble that we determined he'd fallen asleep for the last time. I guess he was rather old." Shandril smiled at Kath and Liam apologetically. "Humans don't seem to last very long." The wizard waved her unspoken apology off.

"Ever since villagers have seen a shadowy figure on the walls of the keep at night." Kath's tone implied certainty as he added "It's a vampire."

"So people have said," Shandril murmured, which suggested she wasn't certain.

Liam looked at his workbook. "I'm not sure – as I haven't seen Corian at all today – but we may be going to the keep within the next few days. Hopefully we'll be back in time for the harvest ceremony."

"Perhaps you will." The elven priestess smiled. "Why are you going to the keep?"

Liam hesitated, then shrugged. "Tanis was a wizard, correct? Corian is going because he wants to learn whatever lore might be lying around, and I'm ultimately after wealth to continue my apprenticeship, though I'm not averse to knowledge. And the best part is that it can be shared."

"A noble sentiment," Shandril replied, then looked toward the sun. Her elven mask rose to the fore. "Goodness, we've been a while. I must return to my devotions. It has been pleasant conversing with you, Liam Faren. Please do not hesitate to visit in early afternoon. Farewell, Kath."

"Good day, Priestess," Kath said, watching as the elf walked away. When she vanished into her temple, he turned to the wizard. "So Liam, what do you think of Fairhill?"

The shorter man – and it was rare that Liam considered himself such – looked about before answering, seeing devotees praying at the shrines and recalling the busy marketplace. "It bustles," He finally answered. "I've spent the greater portion of the last six years in a house outside Kerist-Alshoon, and what trips into town I did take were into areas that didn't see much of the city's trade."

"What trade is that?" Kath asked. "I must admit I've never seen the sea. I was born in Ravik. It's a village about a day and a half west of here, and sits upon Raviksmere Lake. Heard of it?"

"I'm sorry," Liam shook his head. "Geography was never my strong point."

"What does math have to do with it?" Kath replied, puzzled. For a moment Liam stared at the cleric, trying to determine if he was kidding.

He wasn't.

"Geography is locations and places," Liam spoke slowly and enunciated carefully. "Geometry is shapes and the mathematics governing them." How ironic that even in Palax the two words were similar: _akivaraska _and_ akivadaski_. _Maybe Corian's right and I do speak too fast._

"Ah, right, right." Kath laughed boomingly, startling several nearby villagers.

"Is Ravik as diverse as Fairhill?" Liam asked after Kath trailed off and the silence began to wear.

"Hmm? Oh, no, it's just humans and dwarves. I think there're a couple elves, but they keep to themselves. Or they did last I was there." He frowned. "It's been a couple months. Maybe I should make a visit."

"It is always good to keep in contact with one's family," Liam mused, standing. "I'm terribly sorry, but I must find out what the plan is for the keep, and Corian's the one with the plan. Apologies, and have a good day, Kath. It was a pleasure to meet you." Liam bowed to Kath, but was unprepared as he jumped up and caught the wizard up in another tight hug. This time Liam squirmed, just barely managing to avoid getting shish kabobed by the cleric's gauntlets. As it was, Liam could still feel the tips of a couple spikes pressing into his back, threatening to draw blood.

He patted Kath awkwardly on the back and stumbled when he set the wizard down. Being picked up like that was an unfamiliar experience. Most everyone he'd ever known was tiny compared to him, but the big priest made Liam feel positively petit.

Once free of the shrine district, locating Corian began to feel like a daunting task. From his vantage point atop the inclined road leading down to the market, he could see little more than a vast, quilted canopy of canvas tents that buzzed and pulsed with the mid-afternoon breeze and the activities of townspeople transporting, purchasing, selling or ogling goods.

Muttering darkly, Liam was unprepared for the surge of hostility from Flare. Anger, helplessness, territoriality, these all flashed into his mind like blinking neon lights dropped from the sky to surround him, and for a moment he staggered and nearly lost his balance. He did drop his shiny new workbook as he grabbed his head against the beginnings of a headache, but the disorientation faded as Liam got a handle on it, and with only a quick pause to grab his book he tore off in the direction of the Drunken Cockatrice.

As always seemed to happen whenever he hurried, the population of Fairhill seemed to triple and congregate exactly where he didn't need them to be. In dodging villagers it felt as though he'd covered four times as much ground as there actually was to the inn, but once he got to the door Liam was thankful for the time of day, as the common room was nearly empty. Glarian and Tsuyarra were sitting and speaking quietly in Milava as the door slammed open and Liam lunged inside. At the sound they started and rose from their seats, staring at him wide-eyed.

Liam ignored them and ran for the stairs, slowing only to take them two at a time: it happened that when Liam was twelve he'd tripped while running up the stairs and had smashed his two front teeth in. The dentist – a horrible, evil man – had put them back in with metal posts, and had angled them too far back…though admittedly it wasn't noticeable unless he pointed it out. The memory had never left Liam, and he couldn't bring himself to run up stairs anymore.

So it was that he felt relief: his room sat on the second floor, and not too far away. When he crested the final step, the door was open and Liam could hear someone cursing and crying out as Flare howled and attacked him. The wizard could feel his cat's bloodlust. It echoed and resonated within him, and as he rounded the corner to find a very short man – just shy of three feet in height – defending himself from Liam's cat, the wizard saw red. With a roar that had nothing to do with spells – which had fled before his rage – Liam grabbed the little man around the neck and hauled him away from Flare, then hurled him down the hall.

Humanoids aren't very aerodynamic, and all tolled the little man probably weighed a good fifty pounds…so Liam was rather surprised when he flew to the far end of the hall, a good twenty feet away. He didn't crash, though. He flipped in midair and landed in a crouch before straightening and turning to look at the wizard, wearing an injured expression in addition to a grey cloak and nondescript leathers.

"I was only protecting your things from that demonic feline," he declared, trying to sound innocent.

Liam growled and dug into my spell component pouch with one hand and started sketching runes in midair with the other, beginning the chant of slumber.

The halfling man ran off.

With a sigh Liam relinquished his will, carefully setting the spell back in place. He put the handful of sand back in place and went to check on Flare. The cat was infuriated, but otherwise unharmed.

After a moment of submitting himself to emotional petting Flare bit at Liam's hand and stalked a few feet away to plump down and begin cleaning the blood from his claws. While he performed so grave a duty, Liam looked around the room, searching for anything amiss.

Nothing immediately came to sight, so Liam tossed his new workbook upon the bare desk and turned to check his packs.

At that point he froze, and turned to look at the desk once more. The new, green-dyed leather arcanabula sat upon it where it rested from his toss, but nowhere was his current spellbook. Nowhere could he spy the tome within which held all the spells Liam had been taught. Liam turned that room upside down and inside out searching for it.

He was later told that even Shandril heard his scream of rage.

"Thief!" Liam roared, leaping down the stairs and negotiating the sharp turn to the next half-story flight that led into the common room. "Where is he!?" Tsuyarra and Glarian stared at him, still wide-eyed. They were uncomprehending. "The halfling!" Liam shouted at them.

Tsuyarra tried to motion him to calmness with her hands. "Please, Liam. Calm-"

"He didn't just steal _your_ book of spells," he snarled at her with such vehemence she quieted and backed up a step. "He didn't just _steal_ all the work you put into your spiritual purity. So of course it doesn't matter to you. And here I am wasting my time on _you-_" the acid he put in the word would have dissolved steel "-while he flees with my property!"

"Liam!" Tsuyarra snapped, throwing at him his workbook. Liam fumbled to catch it. "That man left this on his way out. Everything is fine."

Her words washed over Liam as he examined the book to ensure it was okay. The last bit, however, drew his attention as nothing else could. He looked at her, schooling his face into something more human than the grotesque grimace he'd worn.

"Thank you, Tsuyarra, for returning my property. Should the halfling return, advise him that I am not mad. In fact, should he visit, I will be more than glad to relate the tale of Vlad Tepesh to him, complete with an example in keeping with your barbaric world."

Liam stalked back up the stairs, ignoring Glarian asking Tsuyarra what had just happened in the elven tongue.

Once within his room he closed and locked the door, and organized his things as a way to cool down. It took almost an hour before Liam could head downstairs, where he silently purchased dinner from a still-trembling Glarian. Liam said nothing throughout dinner as the rest of his companions arrived, though he could feel Tsuyarra's disapproval as they ate.

The others spoke quietly about plans to visit the keep, and murmured about their day:

Alan had wandered the fields, getting filthy again in the process.

Corian had searched for information on the keep, and discovered where it was and how to get there.

David had wandered trying to find the two Outlander women, but had only succeeded in trailing them as they wandered everywhere. It seemed he missed them by mere minutes as they followed no discernible path, and after four hours he gave up.

Tsuyarra had spent the day in meditation.

After relating their days they were silent, and it took a moment before Liam realized they – the men, at least – were waiting for him to speak on what he'd done.

"I bought a book, spoke with the priests and rescued my cat from a halfling who didn't know enough to stay out of other peoples' rooms." Liam took another bite of venison – or whatever veshk meat was called – and chewed thoughtfully. "Oh, yeah. I chased him down after I realized he'd stolen my spellbook, got a loathsome glare from an elf that doesn't comprehend why theft is bad, and got my spellbook back from said elf."

"That's horrible!" Corian exclaimed. "Who would do such a thing?"

"Some halfling," Liam shrugged. "He was wearing a grey cloak. Tried to stab my cat. Stole all my spells. That means the healing chant as well. You know: nothing of any real importance." Tsuyarra flinched as though he'd slapped her. Liam looked at her as he finished off what little else he wished to eat and fed rest to Flare. There was a sick feeling in the pit of his stomach that served as recognition for how petty his words were, but he could not doubt their effectiveness.

When Flare had eaten his fill Liam went upstairs to silent regard from the others, and once in his room he gave the desk only a sparing glance before rummaging in his pack.

He sat on his bed for a long time, the glass vial cool against his flesh.


	3. Chapter 3

The ringing peal of the town bell brought Liam up out of a dead sleep. His neck and shoulders ached something fierce as he stood and stared at the window, flickering light playing against its edges.

He paused on his way out, recalling the halfling from the previous day. The decision to take up his satchel was easy. Both old and new workbooks were thrust into it as he went to the door with Flare at his heels. He was as curious as Liam for the alarm's cause.

The other group members met outside, where horrified villagers were running toward the temple district. The horizon glowed, as of a deep red sunset, and Liam felt his stomach sink as he considered what might be burning.

They joined the thronging villagers rushing forward, but had to push past a mob of frightened humans and half-elves to get close, and what they saw seared itself into their individual memories.

The temple of Freya was burning, a hellish vision on this dark night. Glare from the fire kept Liam from seeing details, but it looked like there were two groups of humanoids fighting each other. Even as far as they were from the temple the party could feel the heat on their faces.

With a roar the fire completely engulfed the temple, and at a guttural call one of the humanoid groups ran off into the darkness of the west.

"Liam! Tsuyarra!" Shandril ran toward the group with a tall, dark-haired man who looked to be in his forties. He held an iron-banded wooden club steady as he slowed to a stop, robes dropping from where they'd been hiked to his knees.

"What happened?" David demanded.

"Orcs." The man spat. "They came and looted the temple of Freya and…this." He gestured angrily at the temple, then looked to the side as Baran came running up, the elf of a few days ago accompanying him.

He shook his head. "They've slain three guards, and injured many others. We no longer have the manpower to both guard the town and hunt the orcs down." Baran glanced at Shandril and then away. "I'm sorry, Priestess."

Shandril looked down in dismay, then at the party with hope brightening her face. "Will you help us? Please, they've taken the Crucible, our most holy artifact, bestowed by the hand of Freya herself. It is necessary to the harvest blessing. Without it Freya's blessing will vanish and the land shall grow barren once more." She looked at us pleadingly, an odd expression for an elf. "Please."

"I'll help."

It took a moment before Liam realized that it'd been he who had spoken. David said that he would as well soon after, giving Liam an appraising look the wizard didn't really notice past Shandril's grateful expression. Alan and Corian hesitated a moment longer, the former perhaps apathetic and the latter desiring only to accomplish his own goals.

"Freya bless you. Thank you." Shandril looked grateful. Her eyes closed as her hand drifted to her sword and her lips moved silently, though whether in prayer or thought was not readily apparent. After a moment she nodded, and unbelted her sword. The elf woman with Baran choked a bit, drawing Liam's attention.

It was a horn-handled number that looked like it couldn't have been more than a ceremonial weapon, the scabbard was rough leather reinforced by narrow, thin strips of iron in a criss-crossing mesh-like pattern.

Shandril offered it to Liam across her wrists, as was elven custom. "Take this, if you will bear it. Promise to recover the Crucible and bring to justice those who have defiled the temple of my goddess."

Liam looked at the sword for a long moment before stretching out a hand. He didn't want to offend Shandril, but though he was far from experienced with weapons at first glance her sword didn't seem all that combat-worthy.

Liam's fingers hovered just above the hilt before he looked Shandril in the eyes. Switching to Celestial, he spoke.

"I vow to return the Crucible to its place in your hands, and to bring swift justice upon those who have wrought such a wrong upon Freya's temple this night."

Shandril's eyes widened as he gave voice to the musical speech of the heavens. Liam's voice was never intended for the language, but his words rang clearly through the night.

His hand closed about the scabbard and he lifted it free of Shandril's wrists, but before he could do ought else Liam heard a fluttering, as from a thousand birds taking wing. From just behind Shandril a tall human woman stepped forward, dressed in rough, un-dyed leathers. Across her back was slung a sword with a hilt similar to that which Liam had just received, and in her left hand she carried a strung bow, an arrow nocked but not drawn. Her dark brown hair was cropped short, and her leathers didn't do much to hide the tell-tale bump of pregnancy.

Everything had stopped. The flames of the temple, the people, Shandril: everyone and everything had frozen in place.

"Greetings, Liam Faren," the woman – no, the Goddess – spoke. Liam's heart beat faster: she spoke English, albeit with a Norse accent. "Yes, I am Freya. I once was worshiped – as I am here – by the people of what you know as Norway, but the root which tethered Asgard to Midgard grew brittle, and my power there waned, as did that of all the Æsir." She smiled. Freya – a goddess, a freakin' goddess! – smiled at Liam. "Ordinarily, I would not approach a man with this offer, but you possess a more balanced nature than most men. You are at peace between your masculinity and your femininity. I offer you this once, with neither retribution nor harsh feelings should you decline: join the sisterhood of my worshipers and you will share in my glory. Think on this, and when you have an answer, burn a sheaf of wheat under the full moon." A wolf howled in the distance and she stepped behind Shandril, vanishing as suddenly as she'd appeared.

People started moving again, shouting and struggling to put the fire out. The fire began hungrily eating the temple, its smoky breath rising into the sky to blot out the moon.

Liam stood still, unsure if move would offend Freya.

Shandril's eyes widened as she looked at Liam. Her soft fingertips touched his face and came away wet with tears.

"You saw Her," she murmured wonderingly. Then down at the sword, which Liam had lowered to his side. Shandril's eyebrows drew together in a thoughtful frown.

"I'll bring it back, should I still draw breath after this night," Liam promised, still in Celestial. The priestess looked up at him, eyebrows raised in surprise. Then she shook her head and turned to the one-handed guardsman as he started to speak, gazing at the party with mild disapproval.

"Those creatures were orcs, and I believe they lair in that old keep to the northwest. This attack was too brief. It was designed to cause chaos, to rile our blood." He growled. "They've succeeded in that, at least."

The tall, robed man who'd arrived with Shandril eyed Baran. "You think this was a feint, my old friend?"

"Doubtless," Baran replied. "It doesn't make sense otherwise."

"Unless they sought to stop the harvest blessing," Shandril interjected. "These people have offered to aid us, Baran. I would ask that you spare guards to lead them to the keep."

"I'm hesitant to do that, Shan. If this was just a feint, it could be that another attack is coming and with our wounded and dead we'll need all the guards we have."

"Sir!" The elf guard bowed to the robed man and saluted her commanding officer. "I volunteer! If nothing else, they should at least have a guide who knows the land."

Baran chewed his lip and looked between the party and Shandril, then cursed and nodded sharply. "Very well, Lauriel. It goes against my better judgment, but Shan trusts them on this. You will guide them to the keep and back." He whistled sharply. "Jerinor! Hathol! Front and centre!" Two humans jogged up, a man and a woman. "You're to guide these people to the keep in the northwest. Find them mounts. You move yesterday!"

After that there was a flurry of activity as men and women leapt to obey Baran's commands. Horses were brought forward while Corian and David went to grab their gear, and Liam fought to buckle on Shandril's sword until the priestess waved away his hands and did it for him. She gave him an elven smile, in spite of the night's events.

In short order the group had mounted and were about to head out with Lauriel leading when the tall, robed man came forward, Shandril at his side.

"I am Magistrate Arlen. Whatever you find in the keep you may take for yourselves save the Crucible. I wish you luck in your endeavour." He stepped back and let Shandril take his place. She raised her hands and prayed.

"_May Freya bless you, that you might find your quest eased_." The words were spoken in Celestial and as she finished Liam felt her sword resonate as they felt the effects of the spell upon the party, soothing away fear and filling them with the sensation of being guided.

Almost as soon as Shandril finished Lauriel led the way, taking the road that took them out of the town and to the west. They moved at a good clip, the way lit by torches borne by Jerinor and Hathol.

The orcs had cut across fields and forestland, and afoot Liam gathered they'd make better progress than the party. Fortunately, there seemed to be a road that still led to the keep.

_At least, that's what logic suggests based on Lauriel taking us by road._

A couple miles outside of town the party came to and crossed a broad wooden bridge that creaked worrisomely with their combined weight, and a half-kilometer or so after that found them joining some sopping-wet footprints of larger-than-human origin. Another half-kilometer after _that_ brought them to a barely discernible fork.

Ahead was a well-travelled and -maintained road that meandered off in a west-south-westerly direction. It probably hadn't seen any traffic within the past couple hours, while the footprints turned off on a much less-travelled path to the northwest.

Without the constant pattering of inconsiderate footsteps grass had been allowed to reclaim the ancient – or at least middle-aged – path and it was only through Lauriel's knowledge that this was in fact a road that they paused at all.

Even with their meagre human eyes the party could tell the old road – once it was pointed out and conveniently named "the Old Road" – led into a forest not a quarter-mile away.

"They went this way!" Lauriel stated triumphantly. "And not long ago. Quickly, and single-file. The Old Road can be treacherous."

The expressive elf lead them on and into the deciduous forest, but it wasn't five minutes before she called a halt, staring off to the side of the road.

"They left the Old Road here," Lauriel frowned, then looked at the treeline. "I don't remember this path being here." Liam followed her gaze, but couldn't quite see what she was talking about. He could see the orc tracks which lead off the road, however.

As the wizard stared at the tracks, Alan wordlessly jumped down from his horse – which he'd been perched on and clinging to the saddle with a white-knuckled grip – and dove into the brush. He came back out a second later with a small, leather pouch and held it out to Lauriel. The elf dumped it out into her hand and revealed a couple trinkets.

"These are offerings to Freya," she murmured, dumping them back into the pouch. "They must have taken this path." Her eyes tracked up the forest as though she could see through them. "It must be a shortcut to the keep."

"It's possible they were left here as a decoy," David suggested. Lauriel nodded.

"Indeed. Perhaps even to draw us into an ambush. We are better off following the road."

"And risk losing the Crucible into the keep?" Liam asked, dismounting. "No. Look here." He pointed at the tracks he'd been studying. "See the spacing here? It's closer together compared to earlier in the trail. They've slowed right down. Earlier they were loping. Now they're ambling, at best. Confidence." Liam's eyes met Lauriel's. "You heard what Baran wanted: no guards to follow; everyone must secure Fairhill. These orcs don't believe Fairhill is either organized enough or has the manpower to retaliate so quickly, and they're right. Once they're locked inside their keep it'll be a harder nut to crack, but our priority is the return of the Crucible."

Lauriel's eyes narrowed. "But we can't lead the horses down there, and we'll lose time mucking about in the wilderness."

"Dark as it might be there's enough light to see the way and I can track them," Liam replied evenly, crouching to examine the prints. Testing the soil's resiliency and thinking about the weather of the past day, he allowed himself a brief, feral grin hidden by the gloom. He came from a long line of hunters and trappers, and this was just the thing he needed to stir his blood. "They're not making any efforts to hide their prints, and are between half an hour and an hour away if we leave now."

"And if it's a trap?" Tsuyarra asked archly.

"The best way to beat a trap is to know it's there," Liam replied. "Traps only work if your target isn't aware of them."

"But if there's a trap then we don't know where it is," Corian shook his head.

"Invalid if one knows what to expect. I'm going this way. If you're coming that's great." Liam closed his eyes, revisiting his vow to Shandril. "If not, oh well."

He plunged through the brush and moved as swiftly as possible while also not tripping himself up. After a few feet the undergrowth faded to the leafy carpeting of a forest untouched by man's insane drive to domesticate and control. Trees rose all around, and nearly all of those remaining were old growth. Most of the younger trees had died for want of sunlight or simple crowding.

Behind him, Liam could hear the others curse and Lauriel gave Jerinor a terse command to take the horses back to where they'd entered the forest and to wait there.

She and the others followed, however. That was all Liam cared about.

Whatever his brave words may have inferred, he _really_ didn't want to try facing down a group of orcs on his own. If that meant he had to resort to some weight-throwing, so be it. Liam had noted Lauriel's expression when Shandril gave him her sword. Evidently, it carried quite a bit of influence with her.

It didn't take the others long to catch up, and from there they played catch-up to the orc raiding party.

Although almost worth the look on Lauriel's face, it was still somewhat embarrassing how easily the party overtook the orcs. They stopped several times to relieve themselves, drank quite a bit, and were generally rowdy. Their party atmosphere allowed the party to tail them quite closely, and as the trail progressed the trees grew shorter and the undergrowth taller, further shrouding them from sight.

A hand on his arm brought his attention to the rear, where Lauriel had gathered the rest of them. Liam stepped nearer the group following Hathol's touch, and listened to the elf as she spoke.

"First, as honor requires: I apologize for my doubts," she nodded to Liam. "Second, we're close enough that we could set an ambush. Do any of you possess skill with bow or crossbow? Perhaps sling?"

"I and perhaps David can use bows or crossbows," Liam said, then stopped as David handed a wooden pole to him. Frowning, the wizard took it and noted the notches in the ends. With a pained pinch of the bridge of his nose, Liam asked "Did you take these off those orcs on the way to Fairhill?"

He grinned, a flash of white in the darkness. "Yup. Here's some string and a quiver." Liam took them and strung the bow, working slowly to account for unfamiliarity.

Lauriel looked at them oddly.

"You're the strangest mage I have ever met," she shook her head. "Woodsman, archer, priest, mage, what are you?"

"I'm my father's son," Liam replied blandly, testing the bow's pull as David handed a bow and quiver to Tsuyarra. Nice, not too stiff, not too loose. "Before settling with my master I studied how to bear various arms without being more of a danger to myself than my opponent." Liam grinned lopsidedly. "Knowing how and being good at something are two totally different things."

"Very well." She didn't like his explanation, but was willing to move on to the issue at hand. "We'll move around and ahead of them and position ourselves in a circle around where they'll pass. When the signal is given, we'll open fire on them. They're moving single-file, but slowly."

"I can provide the signal," Corian offered. When Lauriel looked at him he smiled enigmatically. "They've been in darkness all this time."

"Ah, truth." She nodded sagely. "Very well. Any questions?"

"Just one," Liam eyeballed Alan. "Can you wait until the signal before you start shredding them?"

His jaw clenched as he worked through some inner teenager's turmoil, until at last he said "But of course."

"If he follows behind them, we can pin them down," David suggested. Lauriel smiled.

"This is a plan. Let's go."

It took a little over half an hour to get into position, and if they made a little more noise than was strictly wise it was fine due to the orcs' continual singing and laughter. Their language was harsh, guttural, and an absolute mystery to Liam. I could pick out the odd curse word here or there, but for the most part it was pure gibberish.

Probably for the best.

They had a six minute wait as the orcs drew near, and when Corian – who was stationed near the tip of a roughly teardrop-shaped perimeter – felt the thread he was holding as a tripwire pulled out of his hands, and cast a spell as quietly as he could.

Four points of light bloomed above the orcs' heads, travelling in a lazy circle. They stopped and stared, and Liam was reminded again how ugly orcs were: like the results of "Pigs and Humans Gone Wild, Volume Two".

…Never mind.

While the orcs were staring in dumbfounded shock at the glowing orbs as they began to zoom around, we non-orcs popped out of the underbrush and let loose wooden shafts of pointy doom.

Of Lauriel, Hathol, David, Tsuyarra, Corian and Liam, the only one who hit anything was the wizard, and that only because the one he'd shot at had stumbled into it. The others' arrows ricocheted off armor or missed wildly.

Still – and worse – of us all Corian managed to get another shot off with his crossbow while still manipulating those lights of his, causing them to swirl around the orcs' heads and rushing at their faces.

His bolt caught the lead orc and burrowed deep into his shoulder. The shaft must have cut a nerve or something because the orc's arm – incidentally, the one in which he'd been triumphantly holding aloft the Crucible – flopped to his side like a dead fish, the Crucible tumbling to the ground.

The orc Lauriel had shot at drew his bow and tried to sight on her, but between the difference in illumination from where he and she were as well as Corian's – bless his creative heart – "dancing lights" flying about all over the place and especially in front of said orc's face, he might as well have been throwing the arrow at her.

Point of fact, out of spite used his own arrow and fired it back at him, penetrating his broad chest. As he fell to his knees and began coughing up blood, David launched an arrow that went far wide of his intended target. More orcs took up their bows and started firing. One arrow went back at David – missing by a whisker – while another came at Liam and slashed right through his protective enchantment and cut a searing line along his ribs.

The lead orc howled and charged at Corian with an axe held in an awkward one-handed grip, only to have Tsuyarra fire an arrow that burrowed deeply into his other arm.

He dropped the axe rather abruptly and looked from one useless arm to the other.

The rearmost orc hadn't a clue what to do, but wasted time batting at the swiftly-moving lights. His axe went right through them with no effect, and while he was paying enraptured attention to the lightshow Hathol managed a shot that lodged an arrow in the orc's neck.

Tsuyarra's orc tried to shoot at her, but she calmly batted the shaft out of the way as she might a gnat…and that marked Alan's grand entrance, where he performed a stunning impression of a bladed whirlwind descending on the rear-guard. His claws went wide, but his jaws took a bite out of the orc's throat. It convulsed and went down, immediately beginning to bleed out.

Disturbingly, Alan chewed and swallowed.

By this point Liam finally managed to nock and draw, but when he loosed one of the lights crossed between him and his orc, and he may have overcompensated just a little too much.

Corian cranked his crossbow into position and shot at the lead orc again, this time dropping him. The orc Lauriel had downed tried to stand, but apparently that was too much effort and he collapsed. Said elf moved to the next orc in the line – mine – and her shot pinned his arm to his side, only the fletching visible.

David's next shot didn't quite fell his target, but the orc seemed to be having difficulties breathing without disturbing the arrow lodged in his chest. Rather stupidly, the orc tore the arrow out with a snarl, and dropped as major trauma took its toll.

Tsuyarra missed her shot at one of the two remaining orcs, but Hathol didn't. His arrow dropped one, but the last had no eyes for the rest of us.

His gaze was locked on Alan, who rose from the bleeding form of the rear guard with bloody claws – despite not having hit squat with them – and a gore-stained muzzle. The teen had a fanatic gleam in his eyes, and the most horrific caricature of a grin. As the orc's hands began to tremble, Alan spoke but a single word in the harsh language of orcs. The orc turned and ran, and Alan gave chase.

It never stood a chance.

Liam averted his eyes and approached the Crucible, bypassing the leader who was slowly bleeding out. Corian commanded the lights to hover overhead, drifting in a slow circle.

"Liam," David caught the wizard's attention as he picked the artifact up. When he continued, Liam felt his ears try and lay back: there was something about his tone, as though he were no more concerned about this than about a light spring shower. "There are some questions we need answered. Is there any way you can patch this fellow up just enough to keep him living?"

Rather than reply, Liam knelt beside the orc and drew out his amulet. The orc's eyes widened and it tried to move, but all it mustered was a bit of feeble twitching. Liam's lips shaped the prayer and Liam's will sent it skyward, asking the Azure to hear his little healing cantrip and keep this creature alive for a little while longer. A flicker of light could be seen just at his fingertips before he touched the orc. It discharged with a dim flash, perhaps a reflection of how reluctant he was to heal the ones he'd just been party to inflicting such grievous physical damage to.

Still, the lead orc was stabilized, if significantly weakened due to blood loss. David questioned him quietly with Lauriel trying to split her attention between the Kerekish conversation and Liam, where he walked away to deliver what mercy he could offer to the dying.

Slitting a throat is…difficult. Beings from Earth aren't always raised to be vicious, or if they are it's more unarmed violence or flinging death from afar via firearms. _I imagine it's one thing to kill someone willing to do you harm and quite another to kill in cold blood._ Oddly enough, Liam had little problem with the archery. Perhaps the distance made a difference.

Maybe he just didn't like hot blood spilling over his hand with each new throat.

Liam refused to use Shandril's sword for this task, instead returning to his dagger. It wasn't an object sacred to a goddess of good, and as such could be treated like a common tool.

After finishing the deed Liam washed his hands as well as he was able in the dirt, at which point Corian's lights winked out.

"Do we need them still?" Corian asked as everyone's eyes adapted once more to the night.

"No," Lauriel said. "Save your spells. We've learned something…problematic." Once Liam's eyes had adjusted enough, he looked toward her and at first thought she was grinding the point of her sword into the orc's chest, but after a moment he realized it was actually driven halfway through said orc's chest, probably putting a dent in his ability to pump blood through his system.

Then Liam noticed he wasn't breathing, and his eyes were sightless.

_Well okay then. I probably could've left the euthanasia to Lauriel._ Liam looked down at his hands and reached for another handful of soil to scrub them with. _Definitely should've left it to her._

"What's wrong?" Corian asked. Lauriel grimaced, as though finding the subject distasteful.

"There's a bunch of orcs in the keep," David said instead. "Before this one perished under mysterious circumstances he told us there's roughly twenty more orcs in the warband. He didn't last much past that, I'm afraid." He looked at Lauriel meaningfully. "For some reason he expired before saying on."

Lauriel shrugged. "He moved."

"He was trying to cough," David replied dryly. "We've got a problem, though. Lauriel wants Baran to know immediately. We need to let Baran know, but we've also got an opportunity to take care of the problem." He looked at Liam. "As you guessed earlier, they're overconfident. We caught these ones utterly by surprise. At the keep, they're expecting these ones to return successfully. Without the keep-orcs being aware that this group is done for, we can get the drop on them."

"This was one-on-one," Alan pointed out. "I can take on four at a time, but that still leaves another…fifteen? Fifteen for the rest of you." He shook his head. "Those are not good odds."

"They are if we're sneaky," David grinned. "We don't have positions, but we can scout. It's a nice, clear night and the moon is almost full. We have our elite ranger here-" he slapped Liam's shoulder, nearly knocking the wizard off balance "-who can lead us right to the keep and after that it'll be no problem to sneak in."

"It's a keep, yes?" Tsuyarra frowned. "These things are supposed to keep others out. How are we going to just dance in there?"

"Because there's a back door we can use to get in with nobody the wiser," David smiled triumphantly.

"It's a possible plan," Lauriel murmured. "But Baran needs to know, regardless."

Corian turned to the guards Baran had assigned to us, who'd been thus far silent. "Could you find your way back?"

After a moment of consideration Hathol nodded.

"And if not," he said slowly, his voice deep and pleasant to listen to. "If not, I can wait until dawn, and head that way."

"The trail is pretty clear," Liam suggested. "Neither group was taking precautions. It should be child's play to follow it back."

Lauriel glanced at the wizard. "Not everyone has the benefit of such august parentage such as you."

Liam looked at her, then shrugged. Whatever. To David he said "I swore to Shandril that I would recover the Crucible and bring justice to the defilers. Both conditions have technically been fulfilled, but what of tomorrow night?" Liam closed his eyes, steeling himself for what he was about to say. "It would violate the spirit the oath was given in if I turn back now. As before, I go forward."

He nodded, as though knowing it was what I'd say.

"My goal is the keep," Corian said when David looked at him. Alan only grinned his feral, blood-stained grin. Tsuyarra clasped her hands before her.

"You are mad, but these creatures must be brought to justice, and not just for their deeds this night." She sighed. "Of course, this means I must be mad, also."

"For certain," Lauriel shook her head and looked at Liam. "I'll accompany you wherever you go, and should you fall it is my duty to bring both the Crucible and Valkyria back to Shandril."

"The Crucible and what?" Liam asked, frowning. Lauriel returned his expression, then spoke, as though to a child.

"The sword. It is named Valkyria, once borne by one of Freya's Valkyries before it was bestowed upon Shandril, its rightful bearer." She emphasized the last part carefully.

"Ah. Thank you." Liam placed a hand on Valkyria's carved-horn hilt and studiously ignored Lauriel's innuendo.

The elf guard turned to her coworker. "Hathol, return to Fairhill at once. Report that the raiding party has been dealt with, and that we move on to scout out the keep. If all goes well, we should return by dusk tomorrow. If not…"

"I'll let him know, ma'am," Hathol saluted then turned and started picking his way back down the trail.

"What of these?" Tsuyarra asked, gesturing.

"They're well-armed and –armored," Lauriel mused. "Tis a shame they're worn by orcs."

"Let's leave them," Corian suggested, but David shook his head.

"Search the bodies. If we're lucky, we'll find something that will make assaulting the keep easier."

It didn't take them long to search the bodies, their collective greed ensured whatever shikas and cravi they found went into their pockets, yet their sense of fairness caused them to divide it as evenly as possible. The leader had a small sack tied to his belt which held a rather nice pearl Liam recognized as a component for a basic divination spell of magical object identification. It vanished into his belt pouch.

Since the orcs didn't need their arrows any longer, the party shared them amongst ourselves, and even bequeathed a bow upon Alan so that he wouldn't creep us out with his tendency to "Beast" out and eat whatever he killed.

As to all else…they found an black, iron key tied to the lead orc's belt, but regrettably when he'd fallen he'd broken it between his bony posterior and a handy rock. It now existed in a number of shards, as though it'd been made of glass.

"I didn't know iron was supposed to shatter like this," Liam murmured, jingling the shards.

"Can you fix it?" Lauriel asked. The wizard looked at her, an eyebrow raised inquisitively. She shrugged. "I've seen some of the guards' wizards working such magic to repair tears in cloth and broken pottery. Could not the same be applied to this?"

After an appraising look at the key Liam sighed. "Yes, but it would take a while. Seven or eight repetitions of the spell in question. Each casting affects only a single break, and you see how many pieces there are? I recommend scouting the area first, and then if necessary we'll return to Fairhill and I can rebuild the key."

The elf grunted, but didn't say much more than a muttered, "Well, lead on."

It took them three hours to find their way to the ruins. The first hour was spent trying to find the blasted trail. Following the orcs hadn't been a problem, since they hadn't been hiding their tracks in their festive mood. Unfortunately, they'd been significantly more cautious en route to Fairhill, which meant greater difficulty in the tracking.

Once Liam circled the same outcropping of rock three times and tracked back over the same patch of deadwood four times – while walking in a straight line – Liam managed to lead them back to the battle site – well…a couple hundred paces away, at least – and from there to the keep.

The terrain got progressively more rugged, to the point where it became nigh impassable save through a very well-hidden path that opened quite suddenly on the crumbled-mortar walls of Fluvian Tanis' ruined keep.

They also stumbled upon two shadowy figures whose whispered conversation ceased as they broke through the underbrush and into the small clearing at the base of a corner tower.

The one was a dark-haired woman, about five and a half feet tall and wearing the loose, kimono-like garment favoured by elf ladies of "high" breeding. The low neckline revealed the fine mesh of chain mail winking in the moonlight, but otherwise Liam couldn't tell much about her build. Tucked into her obi – strange that in both elven Milava and human Japanese the word was the same – were two fans, finely wrought and befitting any elven lady. Certainly those Liam had seen carried in sedans through the streets of Kerist-Alshoon had kept similar trinkets in their belts.

Despite her choice of wardrobe, she was neither elf nor Japanese.

Of the other, Liam could tell little beyond that she was a Caucasian female with long, blonde hair tied in a bun. A featureless white mask covered her face, the shadowy eyeholes masking whatever color they might have been. She was nearly half a foot taller than the brunette, stocky in build and dressed in close-fitting pants and shirt whose fabric was dyed various shades of grey. Her vest held pockets from which hung darts, and a bandolier that held twin rows of throwing knives descended across her chest. She virtually bristled with pointy weapons, and as the party blundered through into the clearing with bushes rustling and branches snapping in their path she had drawn two blades and held them poised to throw.

When she saw the party more clearly, she relaxed a little, but did not sheathe the blades.

"Who the hell are you?" the brunette demanded in a low voice, her accent vaguely reminiscent of a southern belle. Her hands strayed near the bases of her fans, but otherwise she didn't move.

"Orcs attacked Fairhill, and we were sent to deal with them," David replied, spreading his hands. The brunette's eyes widened when she saw him. "Hello, Sif."

"David." She nodded once and turned to her companion. The blonde looked at Sif then sheathed her daggers in a fluid, well-practiced motion.

"I know you," Lauriel frowned. "You attacked that woman two days ago. What are you doing out of lock-up?"

"I didn't attack her," Sif snapped. "I defended my honor and my person. No one – man or woman – is allowed to slap my ass and get away with it."

"You nearly killed her!" the elf guard retorted, her voice raising in reaction to Sif's.

"Enough!" Liam growled, temper snapping as he stepped between them. He had not throttled his fear down just to get killed because of a pair of gung-ho fighters starting a shouting contest. "This gets us nowhere. Have you two scouted the keep?" Both shook their heads.

Sif said "We just got here about half an hour ago. The main road led to the front gate, which is rusted shut. With no way in, we circled and found this way in, but it's locked."

Taking a deep breath to cool his temper slowed Liam down enough for Corian to step in.

"So you started to scout, but haven't finished. Why were you standing here, then?"

The brunette gave him a firm look before slowly answering.

"We were trying to decide if we should continue, or try and break this door down."

"That doesn't explain why you're here, though." Lauriel had placed a hand on the pommel of her sword, to which Sif reacted by grasping a fan and taking a step back.

"Please," Tsuyarra raised her hands. "Fighting helps nothing. You said you arrived but half an hour ago?" She'd cocked her head at Sif and the blonde, both of whom nodded. It was creepy, seeing them synchronized like that. "Then perhaps you chased after the raiding party?"

"Yeah." Sif spat. "Fat load of good it did us. Front gate is locked, this door is locked. They might well be shut tight inside their little fortress. We haven't checked the other sides yet."

Alan looked up the tower and rubbed his chin. "It's not that tall. I could climb it and bring a rope."

Everyone followed his gaze.

"That's…unlikely," Corian frowned. Sif shrugged, unconcerned.

"There's an orc on the wall over there," she flapped a hand in the direction of the west wall. "We were considering trying to sneak by to see what the rest of the keep is like." She looked at Alan. "If you can get up there then go ahead, but I think the lookout would be able to see you."

"I'll wait, then." He shrugged, flexing his fingers as though imagining tearing into orc flesh.

"We found that key," Corian said slowly, looking at Liam uncertainly. Sif caught the look and her expression sharpened.

"What key?"

"We caught up to the orc raiding party that attacked Fairhill." Liam's lips twisted into a mockery of a smile, and realized he was dry-washing his hands. He forced them back to his sides. "Their leader had an iron key on him. It shattered when he fell." A possibility occurred. "It might've been a contingent spell, set to go off with his death."

"Interesting." Sif relaxed her features. "I gather by 'shattered' you mean it's in more than just two pieces." She sighed. "We do this the hard way, then." A glance passed between her and the blonde, who shrugged and nodded before kneeling to draw on the ground.

"Woah, wait!" David took a step forward, and the masked woman immediately had a dart drawn and ready to throw at him. He backed up rather abruptly and the blonde seemed to immediately dismiss him. He glanced at Liam briefly, licking his lips nervously before speaking on. "Why don't you scout the remainder of the keep first?"

Sif shrugged. "Why bother? There are orcs inside and this is as good an entrance as any. Glory awaits and we will wreak justice upon them for their ills this night and all past."

"That's insane!" Lauriel hissed. "Do you even know how many orcs are inside at this moment?"

"What does it matter when my faith will protect and aid me?"

Lauriel groaned and grabbed her ears – a gesture of exasperation amongst elves – and turned to Liam. "Why is another not faith-crazed as that one?"

Liam arched an eyebrow at her. "One studies magic; one does not pray to the gods for attention like a needy child begs a parent." Lauriel stared at Liam.

"You would say that, when you've pledged to the priestess of our village?"

"Method and persona are totally different," Liam shrugged. "I respect and honor Shandril, and I feel honoured by Freya's visitation, but I stand on my own merit and ability."

By this point the blonde had stopped etching her design. It was a circle about five feet across with an intricate design within that consisted of circles and straight lines, and something that looked like a thick bracket. She placed her hands so her fingertips just barely touched the edges of the circle, and spoke for the first time.

"I call to you Aym, Queen Avarice. Greet your summoner and appear!" The mask muffled her voice, but it seemed oddly familiar. That she spoke English made both David and Liam stand taller and pay more attention.

From the thick bracket symbol came a flat mass of limbs that moved and shifted, gradually straightening as it rose to reveal a grotesque image. Someone had taken a dwarf woman and ripped off her legs, replacing them with giant, coiled earthworms and grafted two additional heads to her shoulders: one a male lion with a black mane atop her right shoulder, the other a chocolate-colored bull's head atop her left. One powerful hand bedecked with jewelled rings two to a finger gripped the lion's snout shut, while the other was hidden behind her back. The bull's head lolled to the side in slumber.

The lion growled, deep in its throat, causing the dwarf to snarl at it. She flexed beneath a once-fine silk gown and faced the blonde, staring down her nose in derision.

"Who calls me?" Her voice was…actually rather pleasant to listen to, and her response had come in English as well. What was happening here? David and Liam shared a worried look.

"One whose name is none of your concern, Aym." Blondie drew herself up tall and glared down at the abomination. "Suffice it to say I offer you the standard deal: twenty-four hours in return for your powers."

Aym snorted. "Prove that you truly need my powers." She drew out her free hand – just as decorated as her right – from behind her back to reveal a brand with a cherry-red tip.

She held it out to Blondie, and without a word the human woman stripped off the glove from her left hand and pressed her palm against the tip of the brand. She winced, but uttered not even a hiss of complaint as her flesh sizzled. Nearly a minute she kept the palm of her hand against the brand while Aym did naught else but hold the brand steady, but after half a dozen slow breaths she took the brand away and nodded.

"Not bad, girlie." Aym nodded, bowing ever so slightly. "I grant you your victory this evening." She glanced at the keep, her eyes narrowing. "Have a care not to die before our bargain runs out, would you?" She took a step back and turned…nothing. It was like watching her turn an invisible corner that turned her invisible as well.

Blondie clenched her hand slowly, and turned to Sif, holding it out. The brunette looked over and made an appreciative noise.

"Wonderful," Sif murmured. In English. "You beat her."

Blondie shrugged and walked to the door. She held up her right hand – which suddenly burst into golden flame – and grabbed the lock. The fire surrounding her hand changed color to a deep red, to which her only response was to grasp harder. Her fingers were curled about the locking mechanism as she held on and the metal started to change colors.

"How is that possible?" David demanded of no one in particular. Our group of six was held in thrall by the blonde woman's flaming hand.

"Know you this magic?" Lauriel asked me. Liam shook his head, pausing as he looked at the symbol on the ground. Did Jacob ever mention something like this? No, nor was there anything that sprang to mind from any of the books he'd read.

"Pact magic," Corian spoke, nearly in a whisper. "Thaumaturgists that don't wield spells, but make vows and promises with demons and the damned in exchange for temporal power."

"Just as sorcerers learn their spells from the darkest and most vile of entities?" Liam replied sweetly. Corian looked at the wizard, confused. "Don't judge something based on hearsay. It'll inevitably be the wrong conclusion."

"But everybody knows the beings that sort-" he gestured at the blonde, who was now pulling on a dimly glowing lock "-consorts with are the vilest of entities. You saw what she called up!"

"This is a very interesting discussion," Tsuyarra murmured. "But do you think you could keep it down? We're not supposed to announce our presence to the enemy."

"You're right." Liam shook his head. "I'm ashamed. Corian, should we survive this we will continue this conversation later."

"Right." He turned away, and stared at the door with anticipation, touching something hanging underneath his shirt. Ah, yes, the amulet.

A little over a minute after she started, Blondie pulled the lock away as though it were stiff silly putty. With a single deft movement she broke the stretched piece and set the ruined lock on the ground. She extinguished the flames from her hands – which had again turned gold – and eased the door slowly open on surprisingly silent hinges.

"I guess they use this entrance a lot." Sif grinned as she took up a pack her kimono had obscured and walked through the door. The blonde darted in after, leaving the other party standing outside.

"So…are we going in after them or are we just going to 'scout' the building?" Alan asked after the silence went on too long for comfort.

"We may as well," Corian sighed. "I don't feel comfortable leaving women to the predations of orcs."

Tsuyarra and Lauriel raised their eyebrows in disbelief at the sorcerer's comment, and Liam found himself biting his tongue to keep from mentioning that any of the four women within twenty feet of him could probably kick his ass.

Nevertheless, they trailed in after the two women and nearly ran into them.

"Keep to the walls!" Sif hissed, standing firm against the party and pushed them to either side. "There's something on the ground."

The blonde had ignited a single finger and was using it as a candle to illuminate their surroundings. Time had not been kind to Tanis' work.

This tower had been intended to have two levels, but the second floor had rotted so thoroughly it was possible to see starlight through both it and what little remained of the roof. From Blondie's blazing finger it was possible to see a clear path around a rather large pool of green slime.

"It's a wonder we weren't consumed by this," Lauriel whispered. "It consumes all wood and flesh, and grows."

"You can thank the sun," David replied, pointing up. "This stuff can't abide sunlight or fire."

Blondie looked up at that, then down at the ooze. A shared look with Sif communicated something unknowable to the larger party. All moved together and with care around the slime, giving it a wide berth. Flare sniffed at it before walking around as though it were beneath him.

They gathered at the door to the courtyard, where Blondie snuffed her finger-fire. Siph eased it open and looked beyond. Liam moved behind her and Blondie stiffened, but the brunet waved her off.

The courtyard was dark, but starlight outlined burned husks of wooden buildings, one on the far side of the yard and another just past what looked to be a ruined chapel. In what must have been a belltower they could just barely see the outline of an orc peering over the wall and away from the two groups.

Liam turned to Alan and pursed his lips. "How easily could you scale the tower and take out that orc?"

Lauriel snapped her gaze to the wizard. "I was under the impression that this was a scouting mission only."

"How long until they notice their raiders aren't coming back?" Liam replied with more calm than he felt. He could feel Tsuyarra's disapproving gaze like a dagger being pressed ever so gently between his shoulder blades, and he began to rub his hands together subconsciously. "This is a good opportunity. Alan?"

"It wouldn't be hard." He shrugged. "But I only have the energy for one more manifestation, and once that happens I won't be able to warp my movements."

"What?" Corian frowned. Alan made a dismissive gesture.

"Don't worry. I will need a weapon, however." He clenched his jaw for a moment. "I don't like being without my powers."

"Most of us would agree with you." David nodded, rummaging beneath his cloak. "Here, you can use this." He held an ax out to Alan. Liam eyed his friend, wondering where he'd been hiding it. "I have an idea…I've a spell that can sap energy from its target. It's fairly subtle, and can knock someone out."

"Like when you got us that veshk," Tsuyarra interjected. The big man nodded.

"Precisely. If we time this right, Alan need not even kill the orc on his first strike. What do you think?"

"It's a plan," Alan shrugged, and took the ax from David. He gave it a few experimental swings before tucking it beneath his arm and taking a one-handed sprinter's crouch. He heaved a deep breath before running straight at the tower wall.

As one the others gasped, believing he would simply slam into the stone blocks and alert the orcs, and Liam almost missed one of the most amazing things he'd ever seen.

Barring pretty much every magical effect he'd ever witnessed, of course.

Alan ran at the wall, and just as he was about to crash into it head first something…twisted. It was like reality hiccupped and suddenly he was running straight up, as though it were a horizontal surface.

Surprising as it was, David shook off his awe and launched a bolt drawn from the shadows at the sentry. It struck the humanoid just as Alan's upward momentum sent him straight up into the air above the orc. Such was the suddenness of the onslaught that the sentry only stared up at Alan as the boy raised the battleaxe in both hands. As he descended he brought the weapon down on the orc with great relish…

…succeeding only in missing. He landed and they lost sight of what happened, but a few moments later Alan leaned over the edge and gave us a thumb's-up.

Liam frowned. _A gesture of success even here, I guess._

He descended as he'd climbed, that same hiccup heralding both transitions from horizontal to vertical and back.

"I've never seen magic like that before," Corian stammered. "That was amazing! How did you do it?"

"It's just a trick," Alan demurred, holding up a hand to forestall any other comments. "Let's just focus on killing as many of these animals as possible, hmm?"

Lauriel choked down a reply as Sif nodded appreciatively. Liam noted and stilled his hands together, trying to shake free the sensation of warm fluid. A cotton-wrapped vial in his bag momentarily commanded his attention.

"Let's get rid of the sentries next," Sif suggested, drawing the wizard's focus. "Once we kick this hornet's nest, the fewer combatants the better."

"This is insane!" Lauriel hissed. "We should return to the village immediately!"

"We'll return when this is dealt with," Corian stated firmly, showing an unusual amount of testicular fortitude. "We need the freedom to explore the keep anyway. If you wish to return to the village then neither I nor my compatriots will stop you, and I'm quite certain both Sif and her ally would be more than happy to see your back."

"You read me correctly, good sir!" Sif saluted the sorcerer before facing Lauriel. "You had me thrown in prison for defending my own virtue. That's far from a saintly act. Now you're trying to run back to Baran and Shandril, an act of cowardice." Sif snorted quietly, her accent thickening. "I've heard about you from around town. You're very popular. Even your goal of becoming a sacred knight in the service of Freya is well-known." Lauriel narrowed her eyes at this. "As everyone knows, a sacred knight is fearless in thought, word and deed. Are you quite certain that's something you want to commit to? That you can?"

Lauriel went white as a sheet of paper and her hand went to the hilt of her sword. "Are you calling me a coward, human?"

Sif grinned broadly. "Inconsistent, certainly. I'm not so sure I said you're a coward, however. Care to prove otherwise beyond a shadow of a doubt?"

The elf guard eyed Sif cautiously before shaking her head.

"You are mad. There is nothing else to it. I shall not rise to your bait, but I shall not leave a madwoman to this." She gestured broadly to indicate the keep.

_Nice save,_ Liam thought, rolling his eyes.

"Your suggestion was a good one," Corian spoke in a low voice to Sif. "How many are we talking about?"

"We never got that far," Sif spread her hands. "If we're quiet, we should be able to scout them out. They'll be alert for threats outside of the keep, but not from within. Rot within makes useless outer strength."

"So let's scout it out. Liam, can your cat count how many orcs are on that wall?"

Liam chewed his lip and looked at Flare. The cat returned the gaze, eyes glinting within a patch of deeper darkness. "Maybe. I can send him out to check, but I can't guarantee anything."

"Do it. He'll stand the greatest chance of spying than any of us combined, even accounting for elven eyes."

Liam crouched down and grasped Flare's head with both hands to keep him from looking away. Irritation surged through their link before Liam could soothe him. The wizard's voice was low but his tone urgent as he hoped to impress upon the cat how much they needed him to go and count the number of sentries.

It took several minutes before he had the gist of it. Liam knew their bond made Flare smarter than most cats, but the wizard estimated his cat's capacity to be somewhere in the range of a two to five year old child. Of course, he didn't have all that much experience with children, so that could easily be an incorrect estimation.

Flare stalked off around the corner, padding on silent feet as though stalking prey. His sullen anger pounded in the back of Liam's skull like a mallet, and his companions looked at him with varying degrees of pity as he winced against each beat. Liam didn't want to call Flare off of this, but his resentment was childish.

"Should we simply wait for your cat's return?" Sif asked, a hand on her hip. "It's just counting the orcs on the walls, right? Why don't we check out the rest of the courtyard while we're waiting?"

"That'd work," Corian glanced at Liam, then at Tsuyarra. "Dear lady, perhaps you should choose where we start looking?"

The elf stared back at him dryly. "And why would that be?"

Corian smiled in what may have been an attempt at friendliness. "Fairness."

Tsuyarra shook her head in disgust, clearly taking his words to be as patronizing as even Liam found them to be. She peered about, bypassing the well in the middle of the courtyard, and pointed to the tower opposite the main gate. "That is fair distant, and I can't see any orcs nearby. Can your familiar find us if we search over there?"

"I doubt it," Liam answered matter-of-factly. "It's all the way over there, after all."

Tsuyarra gave the wizard a look that could have pitted steel before peeking around the corner at the wall Flare had gone to scout. Her brows knit for a moment before she stepped towards the tower she'd chosen.

Abandoning cover, she walked with stately grace across the courtyard, making no attempt to hide yet moving in near-silence. All watched with bated breath as she put a hand to the handle. Her head tilted to the side and she returned with as little sound as she'd first crossed with.

"What's wrong?" Sif asked as Tsuyarra rejoined the group.

The elf shrugged. "The door is locked, and I have not the key." She set her gaze on the wall they sheltered beside, but her focus was on something beyond. "I also saw a little of the other structures. Gather near." She looked at Blondie. "Would you be willing to part with a candle's worth of light? I fear human eyes are not up to the task I would ask in this gloom."

The woman nodded her masked face and conjured a flame from a single fingertip, providing the scant illumination required for the humans to witness the elf's doings.

Tsuyarra sketched in the dirt a rough rectangle with circles on three of its corners, then extended the wall past the uncircled corner and etched a trapezium. A few squares and meaningful marks that only Tsuyarra could translate later, and she cleared her throat to begin speaking.

"This here is the outer wall," she indicated the perimeter, then pointed at the middle circle. "This is where we just entered. There are three buildings that have been destroyed. This wall-" an elegant finger slashed several lines across what had been the fourth wall of the rectangle. "-is a ruined wall, passable where it meets the outer wall. I believe this area where we are now is the outer courtyard, and the inner is beyond the ruined wall. There are signs of activity in this building-" the square she indicated we were currently hiding under, then the circle beyond it. "-and this tower, but they seem to be quiet." She shook her head. "This is unusual for orcs. Even Kerekish orcs are more active at night than these seem."

"Perhaps because they're waiting for word from the raiding party?" David asked. Tsuyarra nodded agreement.

"If we are to take this keep back from the orcs, I feel it necessary to recommend we wait on your familiar's reconnaissance. If it manages to bring back useful information, then that is the more logical step."

In the time it took for them to agree to wait, Flare returned from his little foray.

He approached and sat before Liam with one paw raised. The wizard knelt and held out his hand, only to hiss in pain as the cat slashed his palm.

"Gah, what the fuck!?" Liam growled in English, staring at his cat. Sif and Blondie jerked as if slapped when he spoke. "If you're thinking of marking out each orc on my hand you've got another think coming. Scratch the ground." Liam watched Flare through narrowed eyes as he sniffed the ground, then returned to staring at his "master" with a paw raised. Smugness coursed down the link between them as he waited for the wizard to extend his hand again.

"We need the information: just deal with the pain," Tsuyarra looked at Liam beatifically. "Many lack the self-mastery necessary to tolerate such. And surely you are not lacking in healing spells?"

Liam pursed his lips and glared at Flare, continuing in English. "You and I will have words when you can speak. Now tell me how many orcs are on that damned wall."

Five more markedly shallower scratches followed that barely broke the skin, whereupon Flare stalked a few feet away and began washing his foot, clearly eager for the taste of Liam-flesh.

"So we have six to deal with on the wall," Sif murmured as Liam applied a bitter-smelling unguent to his hand to prevent infection.

"The raiding party was larger," Corian noted, confidence making his voice a little louder than was wise. Sif shushed him.

"Do you want to bring every orc in this keep down on our heads? By all means, continue if that's what you wish." After a long moment to ensure that Corian was appropriately shamed, she turned to gaze at the rest of them. "I recommend we sweep the wall. Start at one end and move to the other, ganging up on the orcs as a group."

Blondie shook her head. "I disagree." She knelt and touched the drawing on the ground. "They are probably stationed at even intervals. We each take an orc. You-" she looked pointedly at Alan. "-can use that wall-walking of yours to get up on the pile of rubble over there, and you can cover us."

Lauriel looked at Blondie doubtfully. "Do you have a bow?"

From the way she cocked her head, Liam felt like she was grinning. She touched her bristling armament and shrugged.

_Why would I think that? Where am I getting these impressions from?_

The warrior took Blondie's meaning clearly, and after another minute to hash out who was going where, they took their positions and crept forth.

As their targets came into view they realized how much easier – and harder – the task became. The orcs had stationed themselves in groups of two at each of three distinct mounds of dirt and rock. From this side they sloped upward gently, but the moonlit tips of trees beyond suggested that "ground level" was much lower outside the walls of the keep than inside. The clusters of orcs narrowed their focus – the easier aspect – but because they were stationed so close to one another, if they missed one and not the other, well…so much for surprise.

Lauriel got them to time their attacks by finishing a slow count of thirty, but even so it seemed they all had different definitions of the word "slow".

Perhaps some weren't always able to differentiate between the Palax slur that indicated a pause for thought and the sibilant _sirse_ used for both "slug" and "slow". Either way, David and Liam loosed first, their arrows whistling past the orc guards by a wide margin. The others heard the _twang_ of bowstrings and did their best to keep up. Liam couldn't see Blondie or Sif that well, focused as they were on the east-facing wall, but Lauriel, Corian and Tsuyarra were aiming at the two orcs guarding the southeast corner and Liam heard at least one hit.

Alan had taken up residence upon the ruined wall separating the two courtyards, and once he saw that neither David nor Liam had hit squat he showed them up by planting an arrow in the side of the first orc to turn.

It felt unfair given how quickly they'd dispatched the raiding party – and up two more able bodies – but there was no time for disappointment, for the orcs about-faced and readied their own bows.

As Liam fumbled to nock another arrow he caught a glimpse of Corian launched a bolt that landed with a satisfying "_Argh!_" The groups all exchanged a volley, save for the orc he'd missed initially. It took a breath to raise the alarm, but Liam's attempt to deflate that notion flew wide and it roared a guttural word in Kerekish.

One of David's arrows toppled the roaring orc's co-sentry – or whatever the proper term is – and startled Liam's target out of its alarm just long enough for him to miss with another arrow.

_I might as well be throwing them at him, _Liam thought to himself in disgust as he nocked another arrow, but didn't get the chance to aim as David and Alan shot nearly simultaneously at it. Both arrows burrowed into its chest, likely puncturing a lung. It collapsed as it began to drown in its own blood.

And just like that it was over.

…or so Liam would have loved to believe. The one orc had managed to get off a warning, and the only thing rumor agreed upon regarding orcs is that they tend to be nocturnal.

Already Liam could hear them stirring like a kicked hornet's nest in the tower immediately west of the party. They swung their attention towards the narrow door – thanks be for small favors – and waited for the orcs to come boiling out.

It occurred while they waited that maybe unarmored individuals shouldn't be the closest to where the big, strong melee specialists would be concentrating their attack.

Liam glanced at David as he murmured and gestured out his strange shadow-magic, creating armor and a hovering shield.

_ Show off_. Liam grunted, noting in future to prepare scrolls of necessary defensive spells, rather than fob them off on unnamed sorcerers who choose to neither use nor return them.

Liam missed the first orc to appear, though someone behind him didn't seem to have that problem. It charged with a double-bladed axe held high over its head and dirty suit of scale mail jingling, seeming unwilling to notice the arrow it had sprouted. Still, either pain or simple physiological impediment allowed him to step to the side and avoid having his skull split like a melon. Another orc in similar armor had followed close on the heels of the first but went after David instead, enormous axe glancing off the shield of shadowstuff he brought up between him and the edge.

The wizard felt a surge of disappointment: had he been expecting sparks?

Regardless, a crossbow quarrel took David's attacker through the temple, whereupon it stumbled and fell. Liam's own opponent lunged toward him, but stumbled as another arrow caught it in the leg. Fortunately, the wizard was in the act of jumping back as another of those horribly large axes parted the air right where he'd been standing. Had his head been even an inch closer he'd have lost his nose.

Liam heard David draw and swing his scimitar, though with all the snarls and shouting from the orcs he was lucky to hear that much. There were no squeals of pain, so Liam guessed he hadn't hit anything.

Regardless, drawing a melee-style weapon would probably be a good idea at this point in time and with that in mind the wizard began to fumble Valkyria out of its scabbard.

Liam's first opponent took an arrow to the throat and fell, somehow managing to trip one of its companions. As it began to topple it used its axe like a walking stick, with the somewhat ironic result that it severed the fallen orc's throat just above the arrow.

While it realized what it'd done Liam took stock as quickly as he could, noting the arrival of a different kind of orc. Those they'd alerted were dressed in scaled armor and wielded axes with blades on either side of the head. Not so this new one: he wore a suit made of broad, overlapping plates and carried a pole with the kind of ax head borne by his fellows on either end. A double-ended, double-headed axe.

He approached David and swung his weapon, nearly taking off Liam's friend's head but for the grace of a ducking. Still, the orc had a weapon with two ends, and he used his momentum to bury one of the blades in David's side.

As David struggled to get the ax out of his side another orc – perhaps a subordinate to the one with cooler gear? – took advantage of his immobilization and brought its ax down on him. Liam's friend managed to step back enough for the blade to slice across his chest and belly, even dragging the new orc to do so. His shadow-armor was fine: it seemed to repair itself any time it was penetrated. If only it would do the same for his flesh.

David managed to fling the boss orc's ax out of his side and away just as an overly exuberant orc attempted to repeat the success of its predecessors, only to bury its ax in the ground and open it up to a throat-slicing cut from David's scimitar.

Liam had his own moderate success as he plunged Valkyria deep into the gut of the orc whose ax had come so close to de-nosing him. The blade's magic caused Liam's arm to jerk to the side, opening the orc's abdominal wall and permitting its entrails to take a breath.

Several arrows flew at and past the unique orc as David retreated as fast as his injuries would allow. One of the attackers took a parting slash at the tavernkeeper, opening a line across his back. The sudden gap was quickly filled by Alan, who'd charged straight at the unique orc and swung his battleax with all the might his abused frame could muster. It burrowed into the orc's midsection just past the haft…which subsequently broke as Alan glared at the orc. He said something rough in Kerekish, at which point the orc's eyes widened, and it began screaming incoherently.

Froth quickly built up in its mouth, but Liam was startled from this apparently rapid onset of rabies by a loud booming sound and the tremors as of a very large object striking the ground. Liam glanced in its direction and froze as he saw what he would term a "monster".

Liam grimaced, recalling how many nonhuman sentient beings he'd seen around Kerist-Alshoon, anywhere from the human-like elves to the far less humanoid cecaelia.

Perhaps this creature he saw now touched something within his lizard brain, a twisted and perverse mockery of what primeval Man might have become. It stood – if it cared to stand straight – nearly twelve feet tall. Its bottom lip jutted out enough that the bottom layer of its sharp, pointed teeth overlapped its upper lip. A vaguely baboon-like nose snuffled as its hateful black eyes surveyed the battlefield. Its mane was filthy and snarled, and tangled in the strands was a necklace of human skulls.

Freezing was perhaps the worst thing Liam could have done. An ax burrowed into his right side, startling him out of his deer-in-headlights reverie and drawing a strangled screech from his throat. It was a sensation beyond anything he could have described, and not one he wanted to repeat.

With one hand he tried to staunch the bleeding while he lashed out with the other. Valkyria plunged deep into the chest of the orc chief, taking advantage of its insane focus on Alan.

Nearly blind with pain, Liam watched as another orc slashed at Alan and left one of those bizarre, nearly bloodless wounds behind. He tried to dance out of the way and ended up bumbling into the path of an ax swung at him from behind.

He regained his footing as another wave of arrows, a quarrel and a dart – from Blondie? – shot through and virtually all missed, though the dart took out the second orc to strike Alan. With a shout he grabbed an ax belong to one of the fallen orcs and swung at his first attacker. It nearly decapitated the orc, though Liam missed that as the giant creature started walking steadily towards the battle, a club that looked like it had been made from the trunk of an oak tree held well above the ground.

An arrow struck the orc whose ax had tasted the wizard's blood – and likely several internal organs – and Valkyria flickered forward and into its throat while the opportunity to do so presented itself.

Liam then turned tail and ran straight for the others; strength in numbers or some such notion.

Just as he cleared the intervening distance with prayers of thanks for being born with long legs on his lips, Alan flew into my vision and skittered across the ground.

He didn't get up.

The healing prayer replaced those of thanks as he swerved to his side, kneeling to set Valkyria down long enough to channel the spell into him. In the distance Liam heard Corian chanting and recognized the elements of his spell for the arcane missile he'd used on the orcs they'd encountered on their journey to Fairhill.

Alan groaned as Liam completed the spell, and stood as his healer did. Valkyria in hand the two turned to face the creature. From here the carnage was plainly visible, as well as what remained: two orcs and the creature.

Blondie hurled a dart.

Correction: one orc and the creature.

David looked better than he had when he'd retreated, and more in his element with the shadow-armor when he launched a bolt of darkness at the creature. Such a large target could hardly be missed, and the bolt struck the creature without a problem.

Except that it didn't seem to do anything. Liam shot a bewildered look at David, but he shook his head.

"It's big. Takes more to bring it down."

Tsuyarra fired an arrow at the remaining orc as it charged toward them, sending it tumbling to the ground with a shaft causing some serious heart problems. Sif managed to fire an arrow into the creature's neck, though it ripped the shaft out like it was a mosquito.

The lieutenant buried a shaft into the other side of the creature's neck, which it ignored completely. That may have had something to do with someone else swinging a truck into Liam's back, cracking at least a few bones. He dropped to the ground, Valkyria falling from suddenly numb fingers. Somewhere nearby Liam heard someone scream "Bill!"

_That's my name, don't wear it out,_ Liam thought, slumping onto his good side. _But nobody calls me that here. _His right hand was feeling sticky in a way he really didn't like.

The creature stomped forward quickly, and the sound as its club passed through the air ruffled Liam's hair, and something a couple meters away squealed like a stuck pig. Liam could hear Tsuyarra and Alan grunting with effort, and the teen in particular when he snarled like an enraged wolverine.

_Not that I know what wolverines sound like. I'm not even sure what one looks like._ Liam looked down at his side, neck and back protesting all the way. _Wow, that's a lot of blood._

Corian began chanting the missile spell again – _doesn't he know anything else?_ – and the creature grunted as the bolt struck its snout, bloodying it. David starting casting his mysterious magic again, but Liam discarded that as uninteresting compared to watching Blondie – now completely wreathed in white-hot flames – tackle the bastard that had knocked him down.

An orc – where'd he come from? – brought its spiked mace down on Blondie's back, drawing a snarl from her. The fire wrapped around her lashed up along the orc's weapon and burst in its face.

Liam heard a muffled boom as the creature collapsed from David's now-complete spell. Oh! Spell!

_I've got the power!_ Liam's side ached as he pulled himself nearer the flaming blonde as she wrestled with the orc. _Hey, first one without an – ow – ax to grind._

Another orc came up and struck Blondie with similar-but-more-severe results to the first, and then a third came and tried to hit her…just as she rolled. The third couldn't pull the blow fast enough and its ax gouged its boss. Liam could only imagine what would await that poor orc should they be the victors.

The orc-n-blonde act took a turn for the better when Blondie managed to secure her position and grabbed the orc's face with one flaming hand. A bolt of magic evaded Blondie completely and struck the orc's unguarded side.

One of the orcs tried to flee, but David gave it a good gash across its lower back. Its legs immediately stopped working. It was almost negligent as he started chanting again, staring at the grounded orc.

Liam himself got near enough to touch the orc, and began chanting a prayer to the Azure to rescind its light upon this creature. Darkness formed around his free hand while a pulse of agony from his side nearly made Liam lose the charge. He thrust my fingers forward and just barely brushed the orc's black-robed arm. That was enough for the spell, and it lanced into the orc with its grunt of pain.

David's spell struck the orc in the face as it brought its spiked mace against Blondie's head, hard. The mask kept the tines from penetrating her skull, but the blow was still pretty nasty, and she fell to the side. Her flames extinguished immediately as she fell unconscious, and the orc shoved her to the side, standing while apparently unconcerned for the blows Liam's companions rained upon its armor.

Blondie's mask had come loose from the strike, allowing him to see an all too familiar face.

Liam's eyes darted back to the orc's nice, solid **metal** armor.

Electricity wreathed his free hand as he unleashed his last combat spell, straining to get near enough for the energy to discharge. How fortunate that metal is such a great conductor.

It leapt from Liam's outstretched fingers and crawled up the orc's leg in a flash. The orc went into a seizure as Liam's spell fried its nervous system, and between all the damage that had already been inflicted – the hand-shaped burn mark on its face, for instance – and David's fatigue-inducing spell, the fucker was knocked out like a poleaxed pig.

_Don't fuck with my sister,_ Liam snarled at it mentally.

"Is that it?" Corian asked, hope very clear in his voice.

"It looks like it." David's voice, hoarse from pain. "Liam, are you okay?"

"N…" Liam stopped as the adrenaline began to drain away. That – all of it – in less than two minutes. Fuck. Licking his lips, Liam tried again. "Not really."

"This is a priest," Alan put in. Liam managed to turn his head enough to see the teenager. He stared at the electrocuted orc with naked hate in his eyes. He rocked back and forth, as though barely able to keep himself from ripping its throat out with his teeth. "Sometimes…usually. Usually they have potions."

"Good thinking." David again. He knelt beside the priest. "Thank you for your restraint, Alan." The teen shrugged a shoulder as Liam's friend rifled through the priest's things. He came up with a couple vials, and one cork with broken glass in it. His eyes darted back and forth between them, uncertain. "I'm afraid I don't know what these are. I know they're magical, both look like conjuration types."

"Show me," Liam demanded. He held them so Liam could look at the vials. "No, can't tell. Dribble a drop on a wound. If it heals it, give it to her." David looked startled and about to disagree. "I can stabilize myself if need be. I'm – erg – still conscious. Please, hurry."

He checked on one of his own injuries, and after a long moment shook his head. A drop from the other…and he exclaimed.

"It works! It healed me. Alright," he turned to Sif. "I'm a little uncomfortable pouring things down an unconscious woman's throat, so if you wouldn't mind?" Sif raised a sharply defined eyebrow and took the potion from David. She tilted her companion's head up and poured the potion in, massaging her throat to stimulate swallowing.

Almost immediately Liam's sister started coming around.

_Relief._ Liam murmured the minor healing prayer used as a stop-gap measure, staunching his own injuries, though any form of exertion would probably fuck him up even worse than he was right now.

Liam started to drift off when he felt somebody grabbing his shoulders, apparently trying to get him into a standing position. The wizard's cracked ribs made their presence known with gusto.

"No! Stop it!" Whoever'd been touching Liam let go suddenly. "Don't…just don't move me."

"I'd rather get you into shelter. Would you rather die of exposure?" Lauriel. Of course.

"I'd rather sleep for a week." Liam forced open eyes that didn't want to fully cooperate. "I've got some cracked ribs. Maybe my shoulder-blade as well. Not interested in being carried, either." Liam thought for a moment, then reached for my satchel.

"You can't be serious!" Tsuyarra.

"I'm getting a scroll," Liam replied, pulling one out. It felt like the right one, but his hand was grimy and bloody and sensations were a little difficult to tell one way or another. This one? _Magic Detection._ Nope. Left it on the ground as he dug for another one. _Environmental Tolerance_. Certainly not. Next: _Force Disc._ Yes. Wait. Damn!

Someone must have seen the look on Liam's face.

"What's wrong?" Alan this time.

"Scroll's spell isn't strong enough." Liam waved a hand at it and growled as said hand weakly flopped about like a dying fish out of water. "Never mind. Putting stuff back into bag and going to sleep."

"What if we get infected?"

"After that?" Liam snorted, closing his eyes. "We're probably infested with tons of lovely little diseases. They'll just take a while. Let me rest, and then we'll see about getting everybody back to normal."

"Not going to happen." That voice. That damned voice.

"When were you going to tell me?" Liam asked in English. She was silent. "Ideally it'd have been as soon as you saw me. Have I changed that much?"

"Not really. More of a dick than you used to be, actually. Come on, I'll help you out." Liam opened my mouth to disagree, but she cut her brother off. "None of that. I might not be some kind of apothecary savant, but so long as we go slow we can handle the walk and get you back to Shandril. I gather she's a better healer than you anyway, so shut the fuck up and on your feet."

This was new, and Liam didn't argue as she helped him stand, nor when she brought him Valkyria. Lauriel stared at Liam's sister with awe. Clearly she'd decided he was bound and determined to be stubborn and had washed her hands of him.

"Thanks for the potion, by the way."

"You're welcome. Already wishing I'd taken it instead."

"Love you too."


End file.
